The Art of Forgetting
by HermitsUnited
Summary: Episode 2 of the Virtual Season 5 following the "Past Future Continuous." An Adventure Emporium computer malfunctions, leaving people stranded in their games. What'll the Doctor do without Donna? Or WITH Donna? Will he forget her? Will he forget himself?
1. The Adventure Emporium

_Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, it belongs to wonderful people at BBC. This story is my way of saying thank you to all of them._

If you have found this story just now, please, be advised that it is a second episode of my virtual series 5. It might be better to read the episode 1 - "Past Future Continuous" first. I am translating this story from its Polish version "Sztuka Niepamięci." My language may be clumsy, I know, but I swear I'm trying my best. Please, read and review. I hope you'll like it:) - HermitsUnited.

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**DOCTOR WHO**

_THE VIRTUAL SERIES 5 – EPISODE 2_

**THE ART OF FORGETTING**

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**.1. The Adventure Emporium**

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At this time of the day the Adventure Emporium's corridors were desolate and quiet. Behind closed chamber locks projections continued – consecutive episodes of fanciful, baroque sagas, so larded with details, the plot seemed to be at a complete standstill; thrilling stories full of blood and violence; romantic novelettes wrapped in the roar of the waves and the crackle of flames on the fireplace; pseudo-historical epics populated by dwarves, elves and dragons; cheap horrors and sketches just long enough to fill in a lunch break.

Bottle green fibres of a luxurious carpet sprang gently under Theta's feet, making him move soundlessly – a grey shadow in discreet puddles of light and half-light of corridors. The Ood walked deliberately; a waddling, seemingly clumsy gait typical of his species; with arms hanging at his sides and the translator ball swinging on its catch by the shirt's pocket. The Emporium's owners would not let him wear his grey jumpsuit he got used to in the past; a dark trousers and the graphite coloured shirt had to replace Theta's secure camouflage of greyness.

Deep within his mind he could hear quiet singing of Kappa. He suspected that the older Ood was somewhere in the east wing of the complex, several miles and floors away from Theta. Kappa's song was melancholic and nothing more than that. It carried emotions, but contained no words nor pictures. It did not paint the story. Empty, just like muzak accompanying passengers in the lift. Theta and Kappa lived in accommodations provided by the Emporium's owners – small bedrooms facing each other, located in the north wing of the building. Humans must have thought that the Ood, belonging to a social species, would be happy with each others company. Kappa and Theta could as well live in separate galaxies – none of them was showing any interest in the social sphere of life.

At another level of emphatic communication Theta was receiving human transmissions. He had learned not to pay attention to the emotional chaos they carried. Those were artificial feelings, so Theta spared them only as much notice as was necessary for faultless working performance. If Theta was ever good at something, it was definitely a full, unconditional, honest dedication to his work.

He reached the bend of the corridor and pulled the chain attached to his belt. There was a bunch of cryskeys at the end of the chain. With a quiet rattle of thin, transparent plates, Theta started shuffling through cryskeys in search of the right one.

_Wham_!

Theta dropped the bunch of cryskeys and only the chain saved them from inevitable damage. Growth-phase-coded crystals had plenty of advantages, but one serious flaw as well – they were impossible to forge, but they were also very fragile.

"Oooo, sorry," said someone in a winded voice. "Sorry. Are you all right?"

Theta looked at the man, who had just bumped into him. The man was wearing a dun striped suit, a beige coat and dusty white trainers. The man's face seemed quite expressionless to the Ood's eyes. There was also nothing to tell it apart from thousands of faces of other Emporium's guests. The Ood was wondering sometimes how two people could recognise each other in the crowd. Most of them sang haste; haste and time flying by. Usually they also sang money, insatiable needs and countless fears. This man sang something completely different, although his song was also soaked in haste and time.

"Everything's fine, sir," answered the Ood respectfully. "Thank you for your consideration, sir. How can I be of service?"

"Oooooh!" The expression on the man's face, as he raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth, touching the palate with the tip of his tongue, did not mean anything to Theta, but the Ood picked up a wave of surprise, disappointment and sorrow. "Don't tell me nothing has changed. Nothing? You still have to... serve? Because you didn't have to, not anymore. Ever since your brain had been found. On the Ood-Sphere. Or hadn't it been found? Oh, tell me we'd found it, 'cause if we hadn't, it'd be my fault and I'd have to take it into account; I'm a genius, all right, but I'm really starting to loose track of all the..."

"I am an employee of the Adventure Emporium," said Theta raising his translator ball.

"An employee?" A shade of relief, still mixed with uncertainty, coloured the man's emotions. His lips bent in grimace the Ood had learnt to identify with contentment. "Meaning you're not kept here against your will? You could go back home, to the Sphere, if you wanted to? They pay you, and all?"

"Thirty credits a week, sir."

"No... No '_sir_,' I'm not a '_sir'_," said the man quickly.

"Of course." Theta had also learnt that humans were always right. At least human guests of the Emporium. „I have noticed you were in a hurry. Can I be of service?"

„Eeeem... Yeah... I guess so, yeah. I would like to report a fault. Well, not a fault, all's fine, all's superb, perfect, _fantastic_; just... I can't program the projection details in my chamber. The computer rejects my data. Weeell, not rejects, just won't accept it at all. Buffer field's too limited. I tried to access the core software, seeing as this computer has a colossal capability and empty areas in the core, much more extensive than accessible sectors..."

"Software manipulation is not allowed, sir."

"'_Sir'_ again!"

"At the basis of our system lies a multilayered, self-regulating software complex _Emporium Everdream 2.1_, all rights reserved, property of the Adventure Emporium Corporation Unlimited. The article 12, point 3 of regulations for the Adventure Emporium, Emporia Moon, Triangalla System, in respect of all unauthorised access to the core software says as follows: 'Each and every unauthorised access to the core software can cause serious consequences to the integrity of the software of _Emporium Everdream 2.1_, all rights reserved, property of..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know." The man dismissed Theta's lecture with a careless wave of a hand. "I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. Genius and so on. But... this system of yours, it has gigantic, unused _capability_, if only you tweak the buffers a bit..."

"Please, give me your chamber's number and I will send an authorised Adventure Emporium programmer as soon as possible," said Theta.

"Eeeem, I doubt it'll help. My data... Well, it's quite a lot of data. It seems that an input device in my chamber has a tad low trafficability; what I need is an octalinear, unsymmetrical projection transcoding field, 'cause all my data clumps into noodles before it gets sent to the core; into right _dumplings_; so I just wanted to obtain the base memory upgrade straight from the main pillar, to relieve the buffers, but..." The man looked around quickly. "...these _corridors_! All identical! A colour code, if you don't mind me suggesting it, a colour code, not green all over. 'cause, I must admit, this is worse than the Labyrinth, and the Labyrinth could be a right pain in the arse. Especially when you were running away from genetic engineering's creations of the Minots, and believe you me, the bull wasn't the worst of them all... But I've got distracted, yes? My thoughts have got labyrinthined."

The man suspended his voice for a while.

"_Labyrinthined_? No? Nothing?"

Theta did not quite know how to answer, so he remained silent, with the translator ball still held in his raised hand.

"So... Central pillar?" said the man.

"I'm sorry but users cannot access maintenance levels," said Theta. "You can apply for a memory and system upgrade. It will cost from twenty to seventy thousand credits, according to the revised version of the price list of the Adventure Emporium, all rights reserved."

"Ah. Yes. No. No, it's not a problem." Theta caught a shade of hesitation in the man's voice and emotions. "Seventy thousand. It's a lot, I presume. Money... is not my strong point."

„You are staying in the chamber...?"

"What... eeem... Chamber One Thousand," the man said. „At the very top. Easier to find."

"A Penthouse One Thousand?" For someone who did not think money was his strong point, the man stayed in an exceptionally luxurious and expensive apartment. "But it means the fiftieth floor. And we are on the third floor right now. It is a long way to get... _labyrinthined_."

The man's surprise and amusement rang clearly like the Ood's song.

"Labyrinthined?"

"I am obliged to use your preferred method of communication," explained Theta.

"Ah. Yes. Well. I'll find my way, you don't have to bother."

"As you wish." Theta pulled a spatial slide from his shirt pocket and handed it over. "In such case, please, accept the map."

"O, thanks." The man took the map and turned it in his hands so that underground levels of the Emporium landed on top, and the East Wing pointed north.

"You're welcome." The Ood straightened the slide in the man's hands, highlighted the fiftieth floor, then hung the translator ball back on the shirt's pocket, turned away and started walking down the corridor.

Behind his back he heard retreating steps. Quick steps. The man in the dun striped suit, the beige coat and dusty trainers was running somewhere again.

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	2. Of Swords and Screwdrivers

_Sorry, it took so long, but now I'm back on track (sidetracted slightly by Doctor Who/Supernatural crossover "Who Sows the Wind vs the Storm Reaper" - everyone invited:D). Here it goes..._

_Disclaimer - There's no money or ownership involved - just loooove._

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**.2. Of swords and screwdrivers**

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Ace paused at the lakeside, on the shore paved with smooth stones. The water weaved gently, pebbles rattled under his feet. Ace stood at the very edge of a narrow beach; slim, fair-haired, a light-blue tunic over his chain mail, and a black cloak clasped on his shoulder with a fanciful, gold fibula. Letting the wind to cool his sweaty, flushed face, he watched the lake with a triumphant smile.

A faint layer of haze, maybe two foot high, was rising from the water. Lakeside reeds were spearing through its veil like weapons of an invisible army. In the distance, above the water and the wisp of fog, there was a rocky island set against the darkening sky and adorned with a crown of a foreboding castle.

Ace burst into laughter and tapped his tights with his gloved hands.

"Didn't I tell you we were going in the right direction?"

Gold only shrugged. He cautiously put his helmet down on the felled tree trunk. His round face under the chain mail's hood was flushed and gleaming with sweat as well. He took off the hood, wiping his forehead with the back of the hand. He had light-brown hair, now clinging to his neck and temples.

"I prefer the stone version anyway," he said. "We've wasted two hours wandering in the forest. You'll see, we'll run out of credits before we'll manage to play it to the end."

"Geee, stop moaning." Ace pulled an irritated face, looking at Gold over his shoulder. "And stay in the role, will you?"

"How am I supposed to stay in the role? You have picked one person scenario; I don't even know who I am here!"

"Just be glad you're here at all."

"Yeah, I'm glad, _your grace_, that you deigned to insert me into _your bloody fantasy_! As a halberdier number three. Cut out in postproduction. These are my bloody credits we're playing for. And it was me who had to get around the software. Without me you'd be stuck in the Fables or in the School."

"Great, I am ever so thankful, and now shut your gob!" Ace turned away angrily, the breast-plate and other elements of his armour clattering.

"You shut your gob! Leech!" With a clang of iron Gold slumped down on the tree trunk, next to his helmet. The pommel of his sword hit the inside of his upper leg. He swore and tried to make himself comfortable.

Ace cleared his throat, faced the lake and opened his arms.

"Eerm... The Lady of the Lake?" he said uncertainly. "It's... It's me... I mean... King Arthur."

„It's me, _I mean_, King Arthur," Gold, shaking his head, mocked him silently, just mouthing Ace's words. "What a dork! Freak, the High Prince of Freaklandia. The Emperor of Cretinia. Why do I let him take all the leads?"

Regardless of his irritation, he intently watched the lake's surface. Even if the best and, all things considered, the only part fell to Ace again, the moment was fantastic and touched Gold's imagination more than tournaments and battles. He was curious of how the Emporium's supercomputer would develop a simple scheme of their adventure. Emporium's visualisations were unequalled, and when supported by cybernetic genius of Gold, who was slightly tweaking the software, the results were usually terrific.

For a moment all was completely quiet. Even the gentle breeze died out. Then, with a slightest splash, a sword's blade slid out from the mercurial surface of water. A glimpse of steel cut through the haze, which then spiralled into barely visible, subtle vortexes, tangled round the blade.

Gold held his breath. He could see a hilt now; fingers closed around it; an arm wrapped in a glimmering fabric. The Lady of the Lake rising from the depth had silver hair, quicksilver eyes and curves of a perfect hourglass. The cleavage of her dress extended almost to her waist; deep slits revealed her legs, wet fabric telling the rest of the tale.

"O... My... Blimey..." whispered Ace.

"Behold the Excalibur," said the Lady of the Lake in a voice which reverberated in the air and made the skin on both boys' necks tingle with anticipation. She made a tiny step forward. Before she put down her bare foot, colourful stones, coins coated with verdigris, arrowheads, bones whitened by the passage of time, shells, swords and beautiful, decorative shields made of bronze had emerged from the depths of the lake. All those items, tiny and large, shinning and covered with algae, whirled in sunrays breaking through the low clouds. The woman's foot landed on the shimmering, bright pathway made of the lake's treasures.

Gold sighed quietly. Oh, yes, the Emporium was unequalled.

"O... My... Blimey..." Ace repeated. The Lady of the Lake was walking towards him, mist swirling behind her. She paused near the lakeshore. She was a good head taller than Ace.

"Behold the sword of Albion, forged for you, to unite people and lands of the kingdom, o Arthur Pendragon, Forever King, the one who was, is and will always be."

"Eerm... thanks." Ace took the sword from the Lady of the Lake's hands and almost dropped it into the shallow water near the shore, obviously surprised with its weight.

Gold rolled his eyes and puffed irritably through his nose.

"How can I be of service, o Forever King?" asked the Lady.

Of course. Gold could have expected that. As usual his friend's personality dominated over his own quiet admiration. Ace thought of adventures as of his private sexual proving ground. And so, everything ended the same way – a barmaid at the roadside inn – "What may I do to please you, fine master?" – fifteen minutes later satisfied Ace straightens the tunic and slacks; accidentally met pheasant girl walking back from the fields with empty pitchers – "How can I serve, my lord?" – and Ace returns to Gold waiting on the roadside with straws in his tousled hair.

The Lady of the Lake curtsied in front of Ace, exposing bare truth about the depth of her cleavage. The boy swallowed loudly. Even he must have felt that the Lady was something extremely different from all the barmaids and pheasant girls put together.

"Eerm..."

The vision of the Lady elongated, bent, rippled, split into horizontal lines and fell apart. In her place there was a skinny man in a brown, stripy suit, goggling at Ace with wide opened eyes.

"Oi, _hello_!" yelled the boy, jumping backwards. "That's... not..."

"Yeees." The slim man in the suit knitted his eyebrows, previously lifted high in an expression of surprise. "Sorry. Hi. Do you know what have just happened here?"

He looked behind, then down at his feet, resting on the shimmering path of underwater treasures. He wriggled his bare toes.

"I was..." A vague gesture. "And I am..."

"That's not fair," stammered Ace. "That's completely not fair."

The man shrugged, leaned out from behind Ace and waved his hand towards Gold, still sitting motionlessly on the felled tree trunk, as if bewilderment was a glue bonding his ass with the harsh bark.

"Hello. Sorry. I'll be out of here."

"It's just... just..." sputtered the King that was, is and will always be.

The man pulled black framed glasses from his pocket, put them on his nose and scrutinized the sword in Ace's hands.

"Excalibur, eh?" he said. "The real thing was a bit less... plastic."

"It is not _plastic_!" yelled Ace, finally regaining the ability of constructing full sentences. "What are you _doing_ here?!"

"All this..." the man's fingers danced quickly above the sword's blade, probably to express his dissatisfaction with the amount of its gilding "..._frippery_. The real Excalibur was simple. Quite dreary. Well, swords are usually dreary, aren't they? There were some engravings, over there, something in the lines of 'Pick me up' on one side and 'Throw me away' on the other; mystical thingamabobs if you ask me, but meant to inspire respect, because Merlin thought..."

"_Computer_!" bellowed Ace.

The man jumped backwards, his eyebrows again going high up his forehead.

"Ah, yes, sorry." He took off his glasses, folded them and put into the inside pocket of his suit. In its place a small, well worn object appeared in his hand. The man clicked the switch. This time it was Ace who stepped back, but the object just shone blue light and emitted high, modulated whine.

"Computer, there is a fault!" yelled Ace, but quieter than before. He was standing, sword in his hand, opposite the bloke armed only with a shining... pen?... torch?... or whatever it was, but still he didn't feel overly confident."

"All right, relax, I'll try to restore all..." the man fingered over the device which emitted higher and lower sounds. "Hope I won't reset the whole thing. And where are my converses?"

"Reset?!" Gold jumped up from the tree trunk, narrowly avoiding tripping against his own sword. He fought it for a while, untangling the sword from the coat's folds and blueberry bushes. Finally he managed to push it all aside and to make a few steps towards the man. "Do you know how much it had cost? Personalising alone took hours; avatars, preferences and all! Don't you dare reset us, I didn't save this scene!"

The man looked up from his toy for a moment. With a deep sigh he turned his eyes towards Gold.

"There are worse tragedies," he muttered.

„But..." Suddenly Gold restrained himself. As far as he knew the man could be an Emporium programmer, and if the programmer discovered the signs of manipulation, he would throw them out of the chamber, out of Emporium, maybe even out of the moon, and they would never regain the users' privileges. "But, please..."

"Done." The man raised the singing device and pressed a button. „So, have fun!"

He disappeared in front of Ace and Gold's eyes, replaced again by the Lady of the Lake. But this time the Lady of the Lake wore a long, slightly baggy dress made of coarse linen, and her red hair was braided into several thicker and thinner plaits. Her face was painted blue; she had bronze fibulas on her shoulders and a very realistic dagger at her side. She put her fists on her hips and tilting her head she carefully scrutinised Ace.

"What are you looking at, _prawn_?" she snorted, clearly not convinced with what she saw. "Are you taking the sword or not? I don't have all day!"

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	3. A Serious Malfunction

_Disclaimer - No profit, just pleasure. _

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**.3. A Serious Malfunction**

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Theta wandered through the Emporium's corridors, anxiety rising. He had tried to contact an authorised programmer, but nobody in the Central Pillar responded to his calls. Finally he had left a brief message on the Central's vidphone, requesting assistance for the player from the penthouse 1000. The absence of humans was quite annoying. Theta couldn't remember anyone reporting the lunch break being prolonged. On the other hand, a different set of rules applied to humans and a different one to Ood, and no 'revolution' on the Ood-Sphere could change it. Anxiety, and maybe even irritation, was giving Theta a headache. With a jingle of criskeys he approached the lift and chose the wing and level of his accommodation.

Kappa was standing in front of his door. With his eyelids half-closed he swayed gently, arms slightly raised, palms turned upwards. His translator ball, although hanging on his pocket's catch, gleamed with milky light.

Theta slowed down and then paused uncertainly. Kappa never used to visit him before. Never. The older Ood must have heard his footsteps (and probably the song of irritation and anxiety as well), because he opened his eyes. For a while he looked as if he was trying to send some message, as if he was straining his mind to transfer some idea. Finally, resigned, he reached for his translator.

"A serious malfunction," he said.

"No." Theta lifted his own translator ball. "Everything is fine. Minds are humming. There's no malfunction."

"A _serious_ malfunction," underlined Kappa. "The controlling buffer reduced. The Cells destabilised. The Cells weakened. The machine is waking up."

"The Cells?" Theta shifted uneasily. "We cannot read them. Where is the information coming from?"

"Follow with me." The older Ood blinked quickly; his eyes were tired, the faintest shade of red staining their glossy surfaces.

"Where?"

"To see the Cells."

"To see the Cells? No. People go see the Cells; people protected by helmets and by the sonic barrier. The Ood's mind is not strong enough to sustain the contact with the Cell. Kappa, have you seen the Cells? Have you listened to them?"

Kappa swayed, leaned his shoulder against the wall and slowly slid to the floor.

"The human song has been silenced," he said, not looking at Theta. "The Emporium's staff members have finished their song. There's just the two of us left. And the Cells. Those Cells, that are still singing, but they are getting quiet and weak as well. If they stop their song, we'll all die. The players, you and me."

Theta could not move. The message he received released just a slight emotional response, but he was paralysed by sheer bewilderment. The Emporium's staff members? All the human employees of that gigantic institution? Several hundreds of technicians and programmers, cooks, maids, receptionists and hosts? It seemed impossible that all of them could die during the lunch break. Theta had seen some of them at a morning handover and he could not believe in them being dead. What killed them?

"Minds are humming," he stated stubbornly, refusing to accept Kappa's words. "The song continues. Listen."

"They're the player's minds, locked in their chambers," groaned Kappa. "Only sleeping minds. The machine sings new dreams for them. Very bad dreams."

"Impossible."

"Brother..." Kappa reached out to him, as if trying to touch Theta in surprisingly human gesture. "We have to... have to... have to... serve..."

He slowly tilted to one side and froze. The translator slipped out from his hand and fell to the floor. The quiet, incessant music of Kappa's mind, accompanying Theta for such a long time, he almost stopped noticing it, broke off at a low, mournful note, never to reappear. The following silence seemed even deeper with a background of constant, completely alien buzz of human minds.

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	4. Dreams and Nightmares

_Well, it took me a loooong time to translate. I've been busy. Had to scrape my old TARDIS and buy a new one (well, not exactly new; let's say - used but still good). Everyone who ever had to buy a new TARDIS (I mean used but still good) knows how hard it is. And scrapping the old one breaks your heart completely. Plus, I've been watching the Winchester brothers and scribbling a crossover of Doctor Who and Supernatural "Who Sows the Wind vs the Storm Reaper" (everybody invited:D). I am sooo sorry you had to wait. But I'll be good now, I swear._

_Disclaimer: I know that the Doctor does not belong to me, but I cannot stop myself. I am mad! Therefore I cannot be found guilty._

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**.4. Dreams and Nightmares**

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He materialised in his chamber and immediately looked down, at his feet. He was still barefoot. He puffed irritably. Donna looked at him with a crooked smile. She was seated on a soft, leather sofa, arms wrapped around her knees.

"Did you plan to achieve something?" she mocked. "Or just waste a few minutes?"

"I don't understand it." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I just don't get it."

He stared, his eyebrows knitted, at a small computer interface, now completely dismantled, with bundles of wires jutting left and right and with a bunch of blinking optical fibres hanging nearly to the floor.

"It is almost as if there was something conscious, something alive, something intelligent."

"It is the most powerful computer in human's history," said Donna. "Excluding the Library."

"The Library!" yelled the Doctor. His face went white in an instant. He rubbed it with both his hands. "Owww!"

"Just don't you try and go _there_," warned Donna. "Vashta Nerada, remember?"

He slammed his hand against the wall.

"I need its computational power!" he burst out. "Just for a moment; just for a brief, tiny moment! But it won't give me access! Three quarters of its memory stuffed up with idiotic little plots; you should see them; they're pathetic! _Humans_! They get the best, the biggest, the fastest computer, that could help them speed up their development, help them evolve to a new level of knowledge, and what do they do? They play 'Quake'!"

He spun around quickly.

"And _you_!" He pointed accusing finger at Donna. "You have no _right_ to be here!"

"Oh, now you're getting rude," she pouted.

"You have no right to look like her... and act like her... and even sound like her. Bloody hologram; but where is it coming from? How does the computer know so much about you?"

"After all, it is the most powerful computer in human's history," she repeated with a smile. "Why do you assume that it has no room for Donna Noble, a woman who saved the universe?"

She stretched on the sofa.

"Don't know about you, but I'm peckish."

The Doctor snorted irritably.

"It doesn't make sense," he snarled. "It's pointless. A waste of time."

"Oh, don't give up so easily."

"Easily?! You call it _easy_?!"

The Doctor tried to wrench the bunch of optical fibres from the interface, and when it resisted his efforts, he kicked the wall violently. Donna chuckled.

"I've got no shoes." The Doctor's voice was strangely even and quiet.

"No, you've not," confirmed Donna.

"Ow!" said the Doctor.

"Exactly."

The Doctor hobbled towards the TARDIS, parked in between the lounge and a beautiful, mahogany bar.

"Ow! A waste of time, ow, I told you, ow, a waste of time."

Donna waved him goodbye, wriggling her fingers. The Doctor yanked the blue box's door open and marched inside, carried by his own anger. Donna was waiting with a mocking smile. There was a sudden rumble as if something banged hard against a thin plywood wall. After a while the Doctor emerged from the TARDIS, walking backwards, one hand pressed to his forehead, confusion written clearly across his face.

"Oww!" he said. "What's going on?"

"I was just wondering when you would notice it," said Donna.

"Notice? What? The TARDIS... It's _not_ the TARDIS!"

"What do you think swallowed your converses?" asked Donna, boredom in her voice and in her posture.

"I'm inside the projection," whispered the Doctor. "In a game. In a whatsitcalled... _adventure_!"

"It is, after all, the Adventure Emporium," Donna sighed.

"But how? When? I didn't initialise any programme, and I certainly didn't go to bed. Oooh!" He slapped himself across the forehead, grimaced and rubbed the spot he had earlier banged against the fake TARDIS's wall. "You're not a hologram! And this is not a computer interface! And nothing had swallowed my plimsolls, I still have my plimsolls, it's just that it isn't real, nothing here is real, no more than that lake and the Excalibur! Of course!"

He looked around quickly.

"All right. I still have some control. There has to be an exit gate somewhere here; there's always the exit gate, some way out of the game. A red door? No, I haven't seen any red door. Anyway, the colour is not important. So maybe..." He hobbled towards the chamber lock, jerked it open and looked out. The corridor seemed to stretch for miles in both directions – monotonously green, dotted with lights and shadows.

"Well, not really. So..."

He marched across the lounge and cautiously cracked open the balcony door. Although the artificial Emporia's sun was shining through the glass, outside the door the Doctor found another corridor, this time a stuffy, dark and strangely familiar one. He made two hesitant steps forward, his eyes opened wide, unaccustomed to the darkness. He outstretched his arms and touched the corrugated surface of the walls. For a brief while he was feeling it carefully with his fingertips, trying to recognise the shapes with a sense of touch alone.

They were book spines! Untouched for a very long time, dusty book spines!

He returned to the lounge at full pelt, shut the door and rested his back against it.

"Something's wrong?" Donna asked sweetly.

"Did you _have_ to remind me the Library?" the Doctor said with accusation in his voice. "Out of all possible places and times, the Library?!"

"It was you who remembered it," she corrected. "As you are well aware, _I'm _not here."

The Doctor mumbled something sounding suspiciously swear-word-like. He pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and started changing its settings but hesitated and glared at Donna questioningly.

"It _isn't _a real sonic, is it?"

"Noooo..."

"I _hate_ when it happens!"

Donna got up from the sofa, stretched again and walked up to him, shaking her chestnut hair off her shoulders. She smiled, took the sonic screwdriver from his hand and carelessly threw it away. She looked the Doctor in the eye.

"Did you know that smart is sexy?" she said resting her hand on his chest, just above his left heart. The Doctor stepped back, surprised.

"They are _your_ memories as well," she rebuked him, moving her hands higher, to his neck, entangling her fingers in his hair. Her warm and very real body leaned against his. "Or your _fantasies_."

"My fa..." She interrupted him with a kiss, but the Doctor jerked his head and held her away at the arms length. "They are _not_ my fantasies!"

"Of course they're not." She smiled and suddenly they were running through a tropical jungle, full of slanted sun beams, overwhelming scents, swirling dust particles (or Vashta Nerada), strange animals' calls, and the flutter of colourful wings. The Doctor looked back and saw Jenny rushing behind them, her brow sweaty, her fair hair flying and her eyes sparkling. Her brilliant smile was still untouched by loss and pain.

"Run, dad!"

"_NO_!"

In a split second surprise and bewilderment gave way to ice-cold fury. The Doctor halted abruptly, scowling, anger in his eyes.

"_ENOUGH_!"

"It's just an adventure," said Donna, coming to a halt next to him. She lifted her hand and wiped the sweat of her brow. "Stick to the plot or else..."

"Or _what_ else?" The Doctor glared at her.

Jenny shrieked and dashed towards them, but before she managed to take a step, from the surrounding jungle emerged people in military uniforms. Their guns spouted bullets and Jenny was almost blown away, pushed aside, into the thick undergrowth. Warm, red drizzle covered the Doctor's face. Jenny's blood. His whole body twitched, but he could not move towards her. He was watching his daughter, her body torn by bullets, dying on the damp ground.

He felt Donna's hand slipping into his.

"Run!" she yelled. And although he did not want to, although everything inside him was screaming and falling apart, he followed her through the beautiful forest vibrant with strange sounds.

"Otherwise your fantasies will become your nightmares," shouted Donna, still running. "And we both well know what the nightmares of the Time Lord are."

"Jenny!" the Doctor gasped, trying to look back.

"Just call her again. Just bring back her memory. It is an _adventure_, Doctor, nothing here really dies and nothing really ends."

"Jenny is dead."

"_Everybody_ lives here. _Everything_ lives."

They crossed over, at full speed, from green jungle to the vast, windswept plateau. The grass under their feet changed colour; it was fiery red now. The sky above a monumental mountain peaks on the horizon was the shade of burned ochre and orange. On the left, under a crystal dome, up rose the towers and spires of a resplendent town.

"Gallifrey," Donna said.

The Doctor faltered. He moved his head, slowly, dreamily, not quite sure if he really wanted to dismiss this vision. He was breathing laboriously.

"Everything you've ever wanted..."

There was Rose standing next to the Doctor; older and self-confident Rose; Rose dressed in a traditional gallifreyan robe, her hair pinned up and sparkling with gemstones.

"Everything you couldn't change..."

The Master materialised behind Rose. With small, mischievous smile he crossed his hands on his chest and nodded towards the Doctor.

"Everything that was taken from you..."

Jenny grabbed his arm clinging close to his sleeve. Her hair was bound in a pony tail this time. She wore jeans and a cotton T-shirt, "Oxford Rocks" across her chest.

"Everything you pushed away..."

"_NO_!" He wrestled his arm free from Jenny's hug, moved away from Rose. "It's not real, nothing here is real, no one! Stop, Donna, please, stop doing this! Stop! Stop, let me go! Please! Please! _Please_!"

He was surrounded by people he loved and needed, and he was spinning helplessly trying to find a way out of their circle. He lifted his hands in defence, but did not find courage to hit them or push them away. He did not want to hurt them. He was turning, tears in his eyes, their faces blurring like images seen from a speeding merry-go-round. Donna, the Master, Rose, River, Jenny, Astrid, Sarah, Reinette...

A grey face with slanting, glistening eyes, something resembling a knot of rather disgusting spaghetti hanging in the spot where humans have their mouths. A strong hand squeezed the Doctor's arm, stopped him from spinning.

"Wake up in three... two... one..."

Everything disappeared a the blur of milky light. The Doctor blinked and screwed his eyes. The Ood's face appeared again in his field of vision.

"We have a serious problem, sir," he said, holding his translator ball above the Doctor's head. "There's a malfunction. All the personnel dead. Humans in danger of extinction. We need to check on the Cells."

"The Cells?" The Doctor sat up slowly on his game bed, startled and upset. He didn't even react to the hateful 'sir'.

"Regulating Cells," said the Ood. "Situation is very serious. Human song is getting weaker. Human melodies are fading."

"Does that mean that people are... dying?" the Doctor asked. "People in the Emporium? In their chambers? In their adventures?"

"Help me," said the Ood. "I can't wake up the others."

With the corner of his eye the Doctor spotted the TARDIS waiting patiently between the lounge and the bar; the _real_ TARDIS, his way of escape. He could still see the faces of all his dear ones, like a horrible afterimage. Beloved faces of the nightmare.

"I have to serve," said the Ood.

"I know," whispered the Doctor with a sigh. He looked away from the blue box and down at his feet in dusty white plimsolls. A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips.

"I know," he repeated. "We have to serve. It's just the way it is... I'm the Doctor by the way, you?"

"Designated Theta 1034."

"Nice. Not as nice as Alonso, but you can't have it all." The Doctor jumped off the bed. "Enough lazing about. Let's get down to work, Theta! Allons-y! Avanti! Tak v pieryod!*"

With the sonic screwdriver in his hand he rushed towards the door.

* * *

* _Tak v pieryod – Russian "Forward!" _


	5. The Barrier of Thoughts

* * *

**.5. The Barrier of Thoughts**

* * *

"I still don't really get it," said the Doctor as they were jogging down the green corridor; running wasn't exactly the Ood's cup of tea. "Can you elaborate? What happened to the computer? And what are the Cells? I've never heard of any Cells."

"The computer generates adventures based upon the set of elementary scripts, which undergo several stages of personalisation, initially with a preferential questionnaire..."

"Yes," the Doctor interrupted. "I know; it's the questionnaire I... The questionnaire I _didn't_ fill up. Too many personal questions; _way_ too personal, if you ask me."

"Subsequently the user enters his or her own data, which in turn enables the second stage of personalisation..."

"Ooo, yes, what the author was thinking and what the author was _thinking_," the Doctor chipped in, with a wink towards Theta, who wasn't even looking at him. "Personality and preferences analysis based upon the uploaded script."

"And finally the user creates his or her avatar, thus finalising the adventure's personalisation," finished Theta, completely unfazed. "As a result there is a possibility of nearly unlimited expanding of pre-existing elementary scripts."

"That's where I have to disagree," the Doctor murmured. "My script was far from limitless. Of course I couldn't use any elementary script as a background; the closest to my needs was the "Time Machine" and this is... how should I put it... It's not even the same _galaxy_!"

"True," said the Ood, pausing to catch his breath. "After some time, repeatability begins to appear in all computer generated adventures. And repeatability creates the plush."

"Plush?" the Doctor repeated, not sure if he heard it right.

"A perceivable artificiality; denominated the perceivable-logistic-uncomplimentary-shortcomings or 'the plush' by early technicians," the Ood explained.

"The best computer in the universe generates plush," mused the Doctor. "I was right; I _did_ make a serious mistake."

"Regulating Cells diminish the appearance of the plush," finished Theta.

"How?"

"I don't know." The Ood's translator ball stripped his words of all intonation, but the Doctor clearly picked whole loads of _plush_ in this brief statement.

"Is there any legal clause that forbids you talking about it?" he asked gently.

The Ood's slanting eyes turned towards his face. Again the Doctor was surprised with the intensity of his gaze; it seemed that the Ood was consciously trying to project something other than words and facial expression, something that would directly reach the Doctor's brain. The Doctor could hear his song; a broken harmony of anxiety; but he certainly wasn't able to pick any words or images.

"What are the Cells, Theta?"

"I am not allowed to ask about it. Or to talk about it."

"You said that there was a serious malfunction and that we needed to inspect the Cells. Why? What do you need me for? How can I be of any use, if I don't know what I am dealing with?"

The Ood slowly turned his eyes away.

"We'd better hurry," he said. "The human song is fading."

"Yes." The Doctor also averted his eyes. "Right. There should be lifts somewhere here?"

"Just round the corner."

"So... we'll get to the Cells..." the Doctor began.

"_You_ will get to the Cells," Theta corrected. "I... can't do it."

"Is it some kind of religious ban? Like a _taboo_? A superstition? Maybe it's cultural? Or perhaps just a plain temperamental incompatibility?"

The Ood turned his head slowly and looked at the Doctor just like a grown-up could look at a stubborn three-year-old insisting that the sun is blue.

"So, you don't want to tell me. All right." The Doctor paused in front of the lift's door, pressed the button, lifted his hands and started massaging his temples. "I'll have to find it out for myself. Easy. No, wait, I must've gone completely bonkers... Why won't we simply turn off the computer? You said the computer was the problem. Let's just switch it off and the problem's gone."

"Resetting the computer would put the humans in a serious danger." The Ood looked away. "It had been proven that a sudden interruption of computer's projection may cause a wide spectrum of brain activity disorders, from amnesia, through coma and catatonia, to the sudden-cyberpahsic-brain-death syndrome. That's why the buffers are being used at all times."

"And the buffers...?"

"Have been removed."

"By whom?"

The Ood shrugged in a very human gesture of impatience.

"I don't know."

"Yeeeah..." The Doctor waited for the lift's door to open. He got into its spacey interior lined with mirrors. In their tinted glass his reflection acquired a healthy, happy skin tone, absolutely un-achievable in real life, regardless of hours spent in solarium. Theta caught up with the Doctor, squeezing into the lift's corner. He slid a cryskey into a small aperture below the control panel and chose the underground level five from the restricted mini-panel pulled out from the wall. The door closed. Boring muzak, seriously clashing with Theta's restless song ringing in the Doctor's head, started playing inside the lift.

"Yeeeah," the Doctor repeated. "That brings us to the most important question. Who's behind all that mess?"

Theta's almond-shaped eyes scanned him intently but without understanding.

"In my experience; such things never happen without reason," the Doctor explained. "At least usually. All the Emporium's employees die while the players get trapped in their adventures? It could be a random malfunction, sure, but I'll ask – who's behind it? And what does he want? And I think we're probably making a big mistake going to the Cells. I can bet that we are heading straight into a trap. The longer I think about it the more I want to do... _this_!"

He pressed an emergency stop button.

"Know your enemy. Theta, perhaps I should examine these people first... the Emporium's employees. Their bodies. To establish the cause of their death. Can you take me to them?"

"No."

"Oookay... Another taboo? Because it surely can't be a temperamental incompatibility issue this time?"

"I don't know where their bodies are," the Ood said.

"How do you know they are all dead, then?"

"Their song died away."

"Theta, it doesn't have to mean they're dead," the Doctor said seriously. "Prolonged loss of consciousness, coma, can almost completely silence the mind's song, the telepathic transmission."

The Ood blinked twice before he answered:

"I don't know where the Emporium's employees are located at the moment. I looked for them in most of the places they used to populate. To no effect."

"Wait a tick." The Doctor produced his sonic screwdriver and started fiddling with the control panel. "I'll just redirect the security cameras signal to the screen here... just... just... a moment... there!"

The perspective of an empty corridor appeared on the screen. The Doctor clicked with his sonic. Another corridor. And another. And yet another. Hundreds of desolate passageways, all painted identical, bottle-green colour, lighted with same, identically spaced lamps. The restaurant at level forty. At level thirty. Level twenty. And ten. Sauna. Gym. Solarium. Reading-room. Five bars and ten pubs. Locks' control rooms in between the levels. Crew's quarters. Several terraces cluttered with plastic deck-chairs. A swimming pool with a still, sapphire coloured water. Six clubs. Two supermarkets and several shops. A central steering room, with a wall made up of hundreds of screens, and with a holographic Emporium logo rotating slowly in the air. An engine room. Robotic bays – there at least was some movement – hoovers entering and leaving their boxes; mechanical maids preparing towels and bed linen; butlers sparkling with plastic and fresh paint. But there was no sign of human beings anywhere.

"I can't see people in the chambers," said the Doctor switching off his screwdriver. "There's a deadlock seal."

"Yes," Theta confirmed.

"But we _can_ enter their chambers, right?"

"We can enter but we cannot wake up the players." Theta moved again with something that resembled restlessness. "Please. We must go to the Cells, there's no other way. And we should hurry."

For a while the Doctor remained still, with his arms folded on his chest. Finally he shut his sonic and stuck it back into his suit pocket.

"Yeeeah," he murmured. "Let's hurry up, then..."

He pressed the button on the control panel.

"But we shall stop at least one floor above our destination, okay?"

The lift went down; increasing speed making their bodies feel lighter than usual. Theta closed his eyes and lowered the hand holding the translator ball. He looked exhausted. The Doctor raised his hands to his temples again. He was rubbing them in circular movements with his fingertips, painful expression on his face. It seemed to him that the pain was increasingly more agonizing with the lift's downward movement. When the lift passed the tenth floor, he was sure of it. He looked at Theta. The Ood hunched his shoulders. His eyes were closed, his fists clenched. His song was full of high-pitched, jarring notes, boring their way into the Doctor's mind, causing him even more anguish.

They reached the fifth floor and the pain become unbearable. Gropingly, the Doctor reached out and stopped the lift.

"Umm... Theta?" he gasped. "Why can't _you_ reach the Cells?"

The Ood lifted his eyelids. His eyes were coated with a subtle red tint; the symptom disturbing enough for the Doctor to take a step back. The Ood did not intend to attack him, though.

"Theta is afraid of the Cells," he said quietly. Suddenly there was agitation in his song; another piercing dissonance. "The Cells hurt in an empty place. They hurt in the broken thread."

"The Cells... hurt...?" For some reason thinking became a very difficult task. "Wait... The Cells are emitting a telepathic signal, right? The Cells are telepathic. They can create a telepathic field, unnoticeable for most humans, but readable for the Ood. Are the Cells Ood?"

"No." Theta shook his head. "Alien. So alien."

"But they are alive, aren't they? They are not software, or machinery; they are alive and conscious, yes?"

"Theta... Theta... doesn't know..."

"That's why you needed me, am I right? You needed a human being. Because you can't; you physically can't approach the Cells. Because they can hurt you. Because they create some sort of telepathic obstacle, some sort of barrier of thoughts you cannot overcome."

The Ood just nodded.

"Theta," the Doctor moaned. "Trouble is, I'm _not_ _human_."

He swayed and leaned against the wall.

"And I don't particularly fancy pain as well," he added, pressing the button at the top of the control panel. When the lift's floor jumped slightly underneath their feet, the Doctor wiped a narrow streak of blood which had trickled from his nose.

"We seem to be in the same boat, you and me," he said. "And our boat is going up."

* * *

_A lot of 'tech-talk' (well, sort of, it is not a real tech-talk, you know:D). Sorry for that. But it serves a purpose. I wanted Theta to be smart; not a simple Ood slave, but almost an equal to the Doctor. And I wanted him to be alien. Hence the artificiality (or _plush_) of his speech. As it adds to the artificiality of my own English, it may be a wee bit hard to read. Please, comment - HermitsUnited._


	6. Boudicca

* * *

**.6. Boudicca**

* * *

Ace didn't even try to stick his nose out of the shack. Although the makeshift roof leaked in many places, it was still nothing compared to the apocalyptic downpour outside. Gold crouched down next to him, soaked through and apparently scared.

"She still there?" he whispered, his teeth clattering. His lips were completely blue with cold.

Ace turned his gaze towards a woman standing amongst the storm and torrent with her arms folded on her chest and bored expression on her face.

"Yes."

"What's she doing?"

"She's doing nothing! She's just standing there and staring at me!"

"How could the weather turn so foul? I didn't program any rain."

"As far as I can remember you didn't program Boudicca the Warrior Princess either. It was that guy. Sure as hell. He fucked up the weather. Damn, I can feel I'm coming down with a cold. I'll be sick, just in time for the finals!"

"I remember when I went to Yellowstone with Dad," said Gold. "It's a forest, it's been moved from the old Earth to the Lexon moon, they have similar climate. And suddenly it starts to rain. I thought it would stop soon, but my Dad said there was no weather control on Lexon, you know, to make it more real. So anyway..."

"Does it go anywhere?" asked Ace and sneezed loudly.

"What?"

"Your epic."

"What epic?"

"About Yellowrock, and Lexon and your Dad?"

"Yellow_stone_. Well, a thunder struck the tree. We were in the tent, just a few steps from that tree and I swear it blew us up in the air, two meters high. We could have died."

"Stop _thinking_ about it!" The Warrior Princess, formerly known as the Lady of the Lake, bent down, her face, painted blue, suddenly at a level with both boys' heads. "Just be quiet! And you, _King Arthur_, stop moaning! I'm saving your assess!"

"What from!" shouted Ace.

"Don't talk to her," Gold whispered. "It's just a damn projection."

"Projection nobody programmed!"

"Don't be daft, Ace. Somebody _had_ to do it!"

"I'm just saying. That man in a brown whistle. You know; the suit? He had some device, something... I don't know... a torch maybe?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Gold, vexed. "Listen, at first I thought he was an Emporium's programmer, or controller, but... just think about it; he replaced the Lady of the Lake and when he disappeared, she turned up... this Boudicca. The suit was a projection as well. Nothing more."

"Yeeeah..." Boudicca pulled a face. "Superior intelligence. Just my _luck_."

A lightning cut the sky open and almost instantaneously a thunder roared.

"Close." Gold's teeth chattered. "Blimey, that was close."

The Warrior Princes reached inside the shack, seized Gold by the scruff of his neck and with one strong tug pulled him out into the rain. She looked back at Ace.

"You too!"

"Wh... what?"

"Move your butt! I'm losing control. We have to get out of here."

"Get... get out? What? Get out of the game?"

"It's not a game anymore." Boudicca looked round keenly. "C'mon, follow me!"

"I'm not going anywhere!" Ace tried to put his foot down.

"Don't be stupid!" she countered. "Don't resist! This adventure can kill you."

"Right, well, _that_ is an utter nonsense!"

"Ace..."

"This projection is completely nuts!"

"_Ace_!"

"I'm not leaving this place!"

"_ACE_!"

He finally looked at Gold and noticed that the boy, still being dragged by the scruff of his neck by Boudicca, points towards the lake. Ace followed his gaze and stepped back with a yelp of horror. The lake seemed completely different from the way it looked an hour ago. The water resembled rough inky sea, rugged with waves, torn by whirlpools, wild and dangerous. The sky above took on a green and grey shade, not unusual for the clouds heralding a tornado. It seemed that the rocky island moved closer to the shore. Only the tower remained from the bleak castle – soaring, forbidding, incredibly tall, cloud scrapping. From the top of the steeple a red eye of fire looked out at them; the only distinctive feature in an almost monochromatic landscape. Exactly at the moment when Ace noticed the flame on top of the tower, a zigzag, multi-branched lightning shot out from the fiery point. It hit the bunch of trees providing a shelter for a makeshift shack built for them by Boudicca. In a split second the trees caught fire. Broken boughs crashed on top of the shack. Ace covered his face with his forearm. A tingling sensation washed through all his body, as if it was penetrated by lightning's energy.

"Ace!" Gold yelled, reaching his hand towards him. "Ace, _RUN_!"

"What...? What's going...? What...?"

"Run away!"

One glance at the lake revealed dark shapes crawling out of the water. With a source of bright light – burning trees – behind his back, Ace couldn't really distinguish the monsters slithering out of inky waves, but zigzags of lightning tearing the sky and piercing the lake punched out of the darkness outlines of tentacles, gills and jaws.

Ace shrieked at the top of his voice and put in motion his legs, which were not as numb as he expected them to be. Within seconds he took a lead, leaving Gold and Boudicca far behind him, and dashing towards the heart of the forest in huge leaps, like a frightened deer. He could not wrap his mind round the recent developments and he did not intend to stop and ponder. Projection or not, an adventure or a screwed up script, he did not plan to get caught by the huge toothed monsters!

Behind his back he could hear the sounds of the Warrior Princess and Gold's retreat. The rain lashed across his face, he could barely see anything through the curtain of wet hair. His ring mail, armlets and sodden coat weighted him down, and bloody Excalibur in its scabbard was constantly getting in between his legs. Ace tried to discard the sword, but his cold fingers couldn't open the belt buckle. He dashed into the darkness, one hand on the Excalibur's pommel, the other outstretched in front of him, trying not to collide with a tree trunk or a rock. Twigs whipped at his face; a sharp leaf of a holly bush ravaged his cheek and a bridge of his nose. Ace ran and shrieked with fear, certain of his imminent death.

And suddenly he landed on a soft moss. He got completely entangled in his coat, the sword slammed into his thigh again, the ring mail's hood fell over his eyes and for a while Ace couldn't see a thing. When he finally managed to get up on his knees, and brushed the hood and hair off his face, all he saw in front of him were navy-blue fern leaves. Dark blue ferns glowing with silver sheen in the velvety darkness, as if sprinkled with diamond dust. Lifting his head higher he saw silhouettes of three slim creatures, glimmering with their own light in the gloom of the night. They had long silvery hair and huge, glowing eyes; nothing but radiant irises and wide pupils. One of the creatures tried to restrain a fighting and kicking girl. The girl was maybe ten years old and she didn't look happy at all, Ace thought. The next moment a powerful blow to the back of his head rendered him unconscious.

* * *


	7. Into a Slumber

* * *

**.7. Into a Slumber**

* * *

The Doctor bent down over the game bed, quizzically scanning a teenage boy, tracking emotions passing across his face, watching his eyes moving quickly under his closed eyelids. The boy's dark hair was damp with sweat, his breathing rapid and shallow. A greenish glow radiated from underneath a narrow band of the sublink on the boy's forehead, casting a pale glow on his high cheekbones. The Doctor snorted quietly and turned to Theta.

"I know him," he announced. "I stumbled upon him maybe half an hour ago. In the adventure."

Now, a safe distance between them and the Cells, the Doctor reverted to his seemingly carefree demeanour. He examined the sublink with his sonic screwdriver.

"A deadlock seal again." He grimaced. "I'll try to access it from the steering panel."

"You can't wake them up," said Theta. "I've tried."

"No offence, but I'm slightly better at this neuro-techno-transmitting... stuff." The Doctor, already standing next to the panel and fiddling with his sonic, smiled importantly. "Ooh, _that's_ not good. Levels of neurotransmitters are sky-scrapping. And stress hormones... oww... such amount of adrenaline can kill... It _must_ kill, unless adrenaline is burned up. The problem is; this boy is not moving. Not really. He may think he's running, or fighting, or doing something else, but his body is quite inert, really. He's just slumped on his game bed, and in the meantime adrenaline is destroying his heart, brain, liver and whatahell else."

"They can't be woken up," Theta repeated.

"No, not like that, no," the Doctor agreed. He stood for a moment engrossed in thoughts, tapping the tip of his sonic screwdriver against his chin. "Not from the outside."

He pivoted on his heel and gave Theta an inquiring look.

"What about the inside?"

"The inside?" Theta blinked.

"The inside of the adventure. Can they be accessed from the inside of the game?" The Doctor pointed the screwdriver's tip in Theta's direction very much like a teacher questioning a student. The Ood's expression remained unchanged.

"I was barely able to reach you. Now that I am analysing it, I am almost sure it was made possible only through your telepathic abilities, Doctor," said Theta. "You must remember, however, that my own abilities are vastly diminished. I might not be able to get through to you again."

"Right. Your hind brain." The Doctor sighed and scratched his forehead with the sonic. "You are not a full-blown telepath without your hind brain, are you?"

"I can hear the song," Theta said calmly. "I no longer perceive its meaning."

"Still, you are much better at it then I am," noted the Doctor. "I can hear you, only 'cause you're so loud. Humans, they're quiet. Can't read them, no way, maybe just a tiny bit; it's what they would call intuition. My ship's telepathic though. At least I think so. Can't you hear her? Can't you? I swear, she's singing all the time."

"No," Theta blinked again. "She's not singing to me."

"Oh." The Doctor arched his eyebrows. "Didn't know she was so... fussy. You live and you learn, I guess. Even about my dear old TARDIS."

He shrugged and twirled the sonic in his long fingers.

"Right then. I'll need a game bed. Wait, I'll need a drink and something to eat before I go. Who knows how long I'll be stuck in the game. And I need you to oversee my vital signs. My blood pressure, breathing, hearts rate and so on. And that's plural by the way – hearts – a binary cardiovascular system, a state-of-art biology if you ask me. And I'd like a blanket; my feet are getting cold."

Theta didn't smile, apparently not able to grasp the Doctor's humour.

"How do you plan to wake them up?" he asked.

"No idea, really," the Doctor shrugged. "I'll think of something."

"You'll think? It is not much of the plan, is it?"

Theta's surprise was so human, the Doctor faltered for a moment, quizzical look on his face.

"That's what I do," he said after a while. "I make things up as I go."

"How does it work?"

"Never failed me." He flashed a bright smile at the Ood. "And I was in a few tight spots."

"And yet when you planned to use the _Everdream_ system to simulate a problem you wanted to solve," said Theta, "you didn't try the 'make things up as you go' approach."

"No... See, my problem is... It is... Well, there's no room for..." The Doctor took a long breath. "Anyway, can we go?"

Theta nodded briefly and moved towards the door. They walked down the corridor, arm in arm, an Ood and an entity that appeared to be a man, but with biology and mental capacity so far from anything human. Theta's fingers leafed through his cryskeys. Their quiet chinking was the only sound in the corridor – the thick carpet completely muffled their footsteps.

"Is it possible that it was your intervention that caused the malfunction?" asked Theta suddenly. "Your attempts at increasing memory space, at reaching the central pillar? Could it be you who damaged the computer?"

The Doctor did not even lose the rhythm of his steps, but the Ood clearly picked a dissonance disrupting his mind's song.

"Yes," answered the Doctor. "Yes, it's possible, definitely. It could be me. So often it just could be me. So many times."

"In that case I shouldn't ask you to help me." Theta came to a sudden halt. "I should arrest you."

"Do it then." The Doctor furrowed his brow. "Arrest me."

"You are needed," decided the Ood after a moment of consideration.

"Yeah, that's also quite common," the Doctor sighed.

They remained silent for the rest of their way to the Penthouse One Thousand. They kept silence when the Doctor was gobbling down all edible (but not causing an alcohol intoxication) products found behind the mahogany buffet (a canned pineapple, a lemon, a packet of peanuts, a packet of crisps – onion flavoured, six small sachets of sugar and a pint of milk); they kept silence when Theta was preparing the sublink and programming the game bed. They were silent when the Doctor unbuttoned his suit jacket and lay down on the bed. Theta adjusted the sublink's circlet on the Doctor's temples. Finally he covered him with a plush blanket, procured apparently out of thin air.

"It crossed my mind as well, you know?" said the Doctor, avoiding Theta's gaze. "Outcomes of my actions. I never cared. But then, who does? Do you wonder if by pouring milk over your cereals in the morning you may cause an earthquake somewhere across the globe? Do you ponder the consequences of choosing a different route to your work? If you turned right, or left, you could save a life of someone who in turn could save the world. It's just too unpredictable. Too many variables. But in my case variables include time and space, and dimensions inaccessible for human beings. How I live, what I do, how many years... If I said 'no' when she decided to go with me..." he stopped suddenly. "Maybe I should forget. Unfortunately, I can't. My mind... is full of memories... like geological strata, like grain in the tree... I am the sum of my memories, Theta, but then, so is she..."

"I am not sure if I understand," hesitantly said the Ood.

"No." The Doctor closed his eyes. Green glow radiating from underneath the sublink's circlet deepened the shadows under his eyes, sharpened his features. "I am not sure either."

"I am initiating the procedure," Theta announced.

The Doctor's eyes snapped open, filled with the deepest pain.

"But if it was my fault," he said urgently, "if what happened here was my fault, then... I can't do it... I can't... can't...can't...I..."

Theta's finger pushed the button initiating an adventure already, so the Doctor's feverish words drowned in an incomprehensible mutter. His frightened eyes closed slowly, his face relaxed, breathing became deep and regular. Theta adjusted the blanket. He remembered that the Doctor's feet were getting cold.

* * *


	8. Found and Lost

_Disclaimer: Well, I do own quite a few of them, but not Donna._

* * *

**.8. Found and Lost**

* * *

"Ace? Ace?!"

He came to and abruptly sat up on the moss. The night was still dark and silvery, but three slim creatures had disappeared somewhere. Gold was bending over him, alarmed expression on his face.

"Blimey, I thought they killed you!"

"Who? Who were they?"

"Faerie," Gold answered. "The elves."

His voice was full of comical disbelief. In any case, it had comical potential, irretrievably squandered by pounding inside Ace's skull.

The boy rubbed his head and groaned quietly. "Elves? What, like Santa's Elves?"

"Not really, no," said Gold.

"They used to be friendly," spoke a voice of a young girl. With effort Ace turned his head and saw her sitting by, on a tuft of moss. Her knees, showing through the holes in her tattered overalls, were scratched and covered in scabs. She had lost a bow on one of her pigtails and her sandy hair fell over her shoulder. She had huge eyes, moist with tears. "The elves. They used to be friendly. Always. The fair folk. The Faerie."

"Where's the other crackpot?" Ace muttered. "Boudicca?"

"You mean Boadicea?" the girl asked.

"I mean the bloody wild woman with her face painted blue," Ace answered.

"She disappeared. Said she had something else to do."

"What do you mean _disappeared_?"

"She just did." The girl shrugged. "Like me mum. She just vanished, that's all. Said she'd be back. But she didn't come back."

"What's going on here, Gold?" growled Ace.

"We have crossed into another game," answered Gold. "She's escorted us through into a different adventure. She said we should be reasonably safe here, although the 'flipping buffers snuffed it' – her own words – and she'd be back for us once she's taken care of something."

"As far as I'm concerned she may as well stay vanished. Bloody bulldyke!"

"Ace, a kid," whispered Gold.

"Stop whispering," said Ace angrily.

"I'm not a kid," angrily said the girl.

"See, she's not a kid," Ace repeated. "I bet she's a fucking dwarf."

"_You_ are a dwarf!" screamed the girl and punched Ace's shoulder, hard. "F... fudging!"

"Oww, dwarf's attack!" yelled Ace.

"You are her age exactly," Gold shook his head. "You are a bloody ten year old brat! Can't you see what's going on here?"

"No, what?"

"There was some serious malfunction to the _Emporium Everdream_. We can't leave the adventure. None of us can. The people who managed to do it somehow, and had promised to come back to get the others, never did. The adventures are screwed up completely; you can jump from one to the other; and _that_ should be impossible. And you know what? I'm pretty sure Corrie's mum didn't program kidnaper elves. Just like I didn't program miss Blue Face."

Ace kept quiet for a while, massaging the elbow he had bruised falling down.

"Either you are right, or I suffered a synaptic shock, and you are just my hallucinations, both of you," he muttered finally. "Cause, have you seen _that_?"

Gold looked over his shoulder at a row of gigantic toadstools; toadstools with chimneys and curtains; toadstools with windows and doors, and little picket fences in front of them. He let out a loud sigh.

"Ace, that's a School. That's Corrie's adventure; she was here with her mum when all went fuc... fudged up. Elves, toadstool houses, unicorns and little ponies – it's just a chick's fable. I'm sorry but it's not a pot trip. And as for hallucinations – can they do _that_?"

He punched Ace's bruised elbow, rousing a loud yell of pain and fury.

"Are you bloody mad?"

"No. I just had enough of your moaning. Would you do something useful, finally? Like, help me thinking, or try to find the way out?"

"What do you mean try to find a way out? Call for the gate and..."

Gold looked at him with such disdain that Ace swallowed the rest of the sentence.

"Did you try to call the gate?" he asked after a while, really quietly.

"_Halloo_?!" Gold raised his hands and spread his fingers. "Did I? Corrie, did you? _Of course_, we tried! You're the only person here who fuc... fudging skedaddled into the forest instead of simply trying to leave the game. The adventure doesn't respond to verbal commands. There's no gate, there's no way out."

"So, OK, you're right, it _is_ some sort of malfunction," admitted Ace. "But... they will get us out, won't they? They'll see what's going on and they'll switch the game off. Or they'll remove our sublinks. All we have to do is wait till..."

"Nobody's coming," said Corrie, sticking her fingernail under the scab on her knee. "I'm in the adventure for over three days now, and mum had just paid for 24 hours. And nobody has come."

"I'm wondering what's going on with our bodies."

"Ace!"

"If the software went tits up, it's possible that the hardware malfunctioned as well," Ace said gloomily. "Sublinks. Game beds. Whole chambers."

Gold's imagination offered him a vision of his own deserted body, all charred in the area where the sublink was touching his skin, covered in burns and blisters, trying to send impulses of agony to the brain submerged in an artificial dream. He shivered and shook his head in a silent denial.

"You think too much," Boudicca's voice rang over their heads. "Especially you, King Arthur's squire. Would you like your dreams to come true?"

Gold and Ace jumped up and Corrie screamed; after a second, however, her scream turned into a piercing squeak of joy, only a ten year old girl is capable of uttering.

"_Mum_?! Mummy! Oh, mummy!"

The Warrior Princess came back leading a group of five frightened and ragged people. Four of them wore completely vacant expressions; they were looking around as if not sure whether they were awake or dreaming. Corrie's mum was one of those lost souls – a plump blonde, smeared with mud and dried blood, her short hair messy as if she just lifted her head from the pillow. She was looking down, at Corrie who clasped her arms around her mum's waist, buried her face in her body and sobbed with joy. The woman didn't even lift her arms; she didn't try to hug her crying daughter. Gold nudged Ace and indicated this strange reunion with a jerk of his head.

"What's wrong with _them_?"

"Nightmares," answered one of the newcomers, a dark-skinned man in his thirties, stepping in front of Boudicca. He was covered in mud and badly battered as well, but his eyes were not as glossy and vacant as the others'. He crouched down shaking Ace's hand. "Simon."

"A... Ace," the boy answered. "And this is Gold."

"So, there's eight of us now," the man said. "Not counting Donna. Donna is a projection. I suspect she's an emergency protocol of some kind; a safeguard in case... well, in just such case."

"Do you mean Boudicca?" Gold stammered.

The man guffawed shortly, barring his brilliantly white teeth.

"Boudicca, that's not bad. Didn't think of it myself," he said. "Her name's Donna. At least, she says so."

"And... them?" Gold pointed to the other people who arrived together with Simon – two teenage girls and an elderly man. The three of them stood almost completely still and had the same frightened and cold look in their eyes as Corrie's mum.

"Leena and Katje." Simon waved his hand in their direction. "As far as I know the chap's name's Doug. I know nothing about this little one's mum; she's been impersonating a shop-window dummy ever since we've found her."

"Alice," murmured Corrie hugging the quiescent woman. "My mummy."

"Sorry, kiddo."

"What happened to her?"

Simon shrugged his shoulders. "I've no idea. Maybe she's in shock. The adventure we've found her in... it wasn't pleasant. We barely managed to escape. Leena and Katje became quiet when Donna led us through to this forest; I saw them talking to a man, didn't think much of it. A moment later they've turned into zombies. And Doug, he switched off just a moment ago; not that he was of any use before. We've let him out of our sight just for a minute. He must have hit a very nasty memory."

He rubbed his hands together and vigorously slapped Gold on a shoulder.

"So, guys, the good thing is _you_ did not reset. We're gonna have to cooperate to get out of this alive."

Gold and Ace exchanged surprised glances and then turned to Boudicca, hovering above them with her head tilted and unreadable expression on her face.

"Is... is that true?" stammered Gold. "Are you an emergency protocol?"

She gave him an absent-minded look.

"I'm not a bloody protocol," she emphasised. "Simon, call me a protocol again, and I'll kick your ass."

"She's kind of rude, for a protocol," Simon murmured.

"Will you help my mummy?" Corrie asked quietly.

"Rude..." whispered Boudicca. "And not ginger... Not ginger... Ginger... Found it... And lost it..."

"Bloody hell!" Simon summed up. "Now she's crashing. Hey, Donna! Get a grip on yourself, girl! You said you'd get us out of here."

Boudicca blinked quickly and shook her head as if trying to push away a momentary befuddlement.

"Something's starting in another adventure," she said with complete clarity. "And there are people there. Wait for me here and _don't think_! Don't recollect. And certainly don't exchange ghost stories. If you stop provoking intense emotions, you'll become invisible. Lost, do you understand? They need intense emotions and I am not strong enough to hide you all."

"They?" Ace repeated. "_They_ who?"

"Just take Alice, the girls and Doug to one of those... mushrooms." There was a glimpse of amusement in Boudicca's voice. "And be quiet. I'll be back for you. Oh, stop crying, kid. We'll save your mum. If you stop crying, I promise it'll be all right."

"No, wait, just a moment!" Gold yelled after the Warrior Princess disappearing in the woods. "Just tell us what's going on here! Hey, Boudicca? Donna?"

"Don't waste your breath," growled Simon getting up from the ground. He grabbed Alice's wrist and dragged her along behind him. Corrie trotted at his side, large tears rolling down her cheeks. After a moment of hesitation, Gold reached out to Leena and Katje. Probably for the first time in his teenage life Ace didn't even try to squeeze in between his friend and two gorgeous girls. Instead, he grabbed Doug's elbow and cautiously led the older man towards the nearest toadstool house.

Dark, slanting eyes were watching them from among the ferns.

* * *


	9. The Fire and the Butterfly

_Please, forgive Josh's language; he's just SO rude._

* * *

**.9. The Fire and the Butterfly**

* * *

Josh grasped the screaming woman's wrists and, with a sudden jerk, pulled her closer to himself. He adjusted the grip, wrapping one arm around her waist and pressing the other hand to her mouth. Her screams turned into muffled moans. She didn't try to defend herself; didn't even move her arms; she was so scared, she resembled a mannequin. Josh counted to ten, then backwards to one, and up to ten again. He could feel cold sweat trickling down his neck, under his space suit's collar; he could hear his own heart pounding. Brilliant! Just what he needed!

He whispered straight into the woman's ear, "Shush... It's okay. Shush, shush, shush, shush. You're safe now."

He looked around the corridor. Lamps were flickering as if it ready to go out at any moment; the emergency lights were glowing red, turning the familiar corridor into a ghastly maze. The alarm was blaring continuously, but Josh somehow managed to get used to the noise. Almost. He could not see Dell or Maigretta anywhere and he thanked high heavens for that. The woman he was holding with all his strength whimpered weakly now. He removed his hand from her lips, a little bit anxious that she might start screaming again, but she remained silent. He looked out into the corridor again.

Jeez, he had come to Emporia to relax, and he had chosen a perfect adventure to do so – climbing, fishing in a mountain creek, building a shack, the night under a starry sky. And now he was onboard 'Victoria' and that hell was rolling through the corridors of the old freighter again. The life support system failure; desperate attempts at retrieving the oxygen from the ship's hold; Dell's death; a last shot at reprogramming the computer; temperature raising; Maigretta, third degree burns all over her body, trying to shut the bulkheads. It was so real. But who could know? Some of the detail... He had never put a full, unabridged version of events in an official report; he had not intended to commit a professional suicide. Who would have believed in what had really happened onboard 'Victoria'; who would have believed in a mindless, destructive evil that had touched their ship and killed all but one inside. And now the _Emporium Everdream_ was replaying that nightmare for him, including all the minute details known only to Josh and maybe to that evil force he faced on 'Victoria'. Who had programmed the adventure? Who knew?

„_Huuuummmpffff_!"

Josh jumped and turned in the spot, pressing the woman against plastic panels. The wall of fire moved along the corridor; for a while they were exposed to heat which seemed to carbonise their bodies down to their bones. Josh tried to control his panic, but he failed. His heart accelerated into mad gallop. He opened his mouth, ready to scream.

"Blimey! Whose nightmare is it? Yours?"

Josh opened his eyes and blinked in surprise. There was a skinny man in a pinstriped suit standing in the middle of the charred corridor.

"Breathe," he said sternly. "You're holding your breath."

"Who...?" mumbled Josh. "How...?"

"I'm the Doctor," the man introduced himself. "_Just_ the Doctor."

"Fire..." Josh gibbered.

"You realise it's all just a projection?"

"Of course, I fucking realise!" yelled Josh, surprising himself. "What the fuck else could it be?!"

"For a moment there you seemed really scared," the man said. "No, wait, I understand. I was scared myself. But your own memories are the worst of all. Everything gets twisted and garbled. It gets into your head. It finds the weak spot and hits so hard, you stop fighting."

"What, the fuck, are you talking about?"

"You have to get out of this adventure." The man ignored Josh's insulting tone. "As I said, only your own memories are real buggers. Somebody else's may burn you alive or eat you up, sure thing, but if you _don't let_ _them_ burn you or eat you, I don't think they'll reset your brain."

"What are you saying?"

"This adventure is turning your memories into nightmares. You have to wake up."

"Wake up?" Josh snorted nervously. "And what the hell am I trying to do?! I've been looking for the exit since... I don't even know since when! But nothing is working! Nothing will work!"

"There's something that will." The man took a small device out of his pocket and started twiddling with it. "So, how shall I call you?"

"Josh. Josh Hunter."

"_Nice_ to meet you! And her?"

Josh shrugged. "No idea. Found her in the air-lock. Howling with fear. She's probably just a part of the projection."

The Doctor pointed the device at the woman, just to put it to his ear after a second. He shook his head.

"Nope, she's a player. A one hundred percent, living and breathing human being, just like you."

He leant forward, curiously looking into the woman's unseeing eyes. He moved his hand in front of her face. He smacked his lips in dissatisfaction.

"It looks like she's withdrawn completely. It's a defence mechanism; when the amount of stimuli exceeds a certain level, the mind powers off. She's like a rabbit in the middle of the highway. Staring into the lights of an approaching car, but unable to move."

"What a lovely metaphor," Josh growled. "But how did she get here? It's my adventure... I mean... It _was_ my adventure. Now it's my worst nightmare."

"The system can't sustain the adventures' autonomy. Slowly but surely all of it – every projection, each world, each adventure – starts to merge into one reality. If you look around carefully, you'll see cracks. They're everywhere – gateways connecting your adventure to those of other players. I suspect she has simply walked through one of such cracks."

"And a fat load of good _that_ was!"

"Hey, don't whine! You'd rather stay here alone with your nightmares?" The Doctor knitted his brows, giving Josh an annoyed look. "I don't think so."

"Are you saying we can reach other players?"

"And then look for the way out together? Yes. _YES_!"

Josh jumped again at the Doctor's scream. His nerves were in rags and tatters.

"What are you...?"

"There, look!"

Josh's gaze followed the direction shown by the device in the Doctor's hand. He saw that the wall behind his back was moving, bulging and tearing. Lively green leaves, brown lianas, the smell of greenery and sounds of the jungle burst through the tear and into the corridor.

"We have a rift!" the Doctor yelled. "Come on, before it closes!"

"Wait." Josh raised his hand in a protective gesture. "Where does it go?"

"I've no idea!" answered the Doctor happily. He was already one foot in the jungle, reaching his hands towards the woman.

"You've no...?"

"All is better than a wave of redirected plasma that'll flow through the corridor," the Doctor answered light-heartedly. "I imagine it'll be very hot here in a moment."

Without a second thought Josh pushed the woman in front of him and crossed over into the jungle. The wet ground sploshed under his magnetic boots. A large butterfly fluttered its green and orange wings in front of his face. In the tear behind Josh's back, the corridor flared up with intense, radioactive-green flame of plasma leak. At the same instant the woman, whose arm Josh was squeezing tightly, sighed quietly and slid to the ground. She fell on her back and lie there motionlessly; her wide open eyes staring at the roof of tangled branches.

"Jeez, what...?" Josh started with simultaneous anger and fear. He broke off when the fat, green and orange butterfly landed on the woman's open eye. The woman didn't blink. The butterfly opened and closed its wings, shifting its fuzzy legs over the moist surface of the woman's cornea.

The Doctor looked down, his brow furrowed, lips pursed into a thin, pale line. He turned his eyes away, once again starting to tune his mysterious device. Josh swallowed slowly.

"Oh, _fu_..."

* * *

_I am not the biggest fan of swear words, but I think that when we are pushed against the wall, we don't think much about convenances, and yes, we swear when we are scared or angly. I, for that matter, am horrible behind the wheel. And Josh has more reasons to swear than me;) _


	10. Night Thorns

* * *

**.10. Night Thorns**

* * *

Gold tried to fall asleep. He had never slept in the adventure before – he paid far too much for them to waste even a minute of projection – but now he was so tired, he could feel his head spinning. Beds in toadstool houses were soft but tiny, made for kids, so Gold's legs hung over the mattress, touching the floor. He was starring at a ribbed ceiling – those were gills of the mushroom's cap, really – and wondered when Boudicca would be coming back... Or Donna... Regardless of her weirdness; her painted face, uneven braids, and, most of all, her snappish, know-it-all attitude of someone in full control of the situation; it was kind of nice to have somebody who didn't lose her head in crisis and didn't start running, screaming, into the forest.

Gold turned his head and glanced at Ace, soundly asleep, a pillow over his face and one arm hanging down from the bed. Gold wondered just how much Ace was aware of. How much of the events was he able to understand. Ace was a great mate, but sometimes he seemed so... uncomplicated. He fell asleep within five minutes. Gold envied him so much he could feel pain behind the bridge of his nose. This spot, in between his eyes, always hurt whenever he was really mad, really sad or really scared.

Simon offered to watch over them; Gold could see his shape in the shadows. Moonlight sparkled in his short, curly hair, cutting out of darkness the whites of his eyes. But for that, Simon could well be one of many shadows filling the cabin.

A touch of cold hand almost gave Gold a premature heart attack. He groaned and jumped up in bed.

"Shuuuuush," whispered Corrie, clambering on the bed next to him. She lifted her legs up quickly, as if afraid of monsters hiding in the shadows under the bed. Monsters... Was it possible for Gold to bring them into existence with just one, stray thought? Donna forbade them to think... too much... but people cannot stop thinking. The more they want _not_ to think about shadows under their beds, the more monsters, vampires, living, horrible dolls, clowns with murderous, lipstick smiles and predatory yellow fangs, terrible spiders, ready wrap them in their cocoons and suck their...

"Gold? _Gold_?!"

He blinked quickly and shook his head. He wasn't supposed to think about that! Smashing job, Gold! An 'A' for _not thinking_!

"What's up?" he murmured.

"_They're_ _here_!"

'They're here.' Brilliant. Cryptic enough to send another wave of shivers down his spine. He pulled his legs up as well and looked around carefully, before returning his gaze to the girl's pale face. She was staring at him with wide open eyes.

"They?" he asked, absolutely not wanting to know who or what she had in mind.

"Faerie. Elves."

_Shit_!

"Are you sure?"

"I've heard them whispering. And I've heard that sound. Every time they're about to appear there's the sound. It's like bells or, you know, wind chimes, like the ones you'd put on the porch. They sort of whistle, it's the sound..."

"Yeah, I know, I get it," Gold muttered. "What do they want?"

"I... I... I don't... know... but..."

"Wait. No. Corrie, they're not real. They are a part of the projection, of the adventure. They can't hurt us."

"They kidnapped me mum!"

Intrigued, he rubbed his cheek. Yes, right, the rules didn't apply anymore. When those monstrosities started crawling out of the lake, Donna did not advice him and Ace to _unthink_ them. She did not tell them to face them or to ignore them. Nothing like that. She told them to _run_.

But Donna was a projection herself. Maybe she was in league with fangs, tentacles, lightning bolts and little-girl's-mum-kidnapping elves.

"Fine, all right," he whispered. "You're right. So, where did you hear them?"

"Outside the window. In the garden."

"Good. We're safe inside. They won't enter. Simon barricaded the door, windows are closed, and I've checked shutters myself. They can't squeeze through the cracks, can they?"

"I don't think so," Corrie whispered after a momentary hesitation. "No, surely they can't. Me mum's crying."

_Bloody hell_!

"Crying?"

"I asked if she was in pain, but she didn't answer. My mum never cries," there was pure terror in Corrie's voice. "Never!"

"Corrie, listen," Gold begun, very carefully. "Your mum had a really bad day and she is in shock. She does not act normally. But once we're out of adventures... everything is going to be fine. Your mum will get better. And those two girls. And Doug."

"Doug's not moving at all."

_Bloody double hell_!

"Do you want me to check on him?"

Corrie nodded energetically. Gold had to repress another wave of irritation. Bloody brat, she should be asleep and not wander about checking who's moving and who's not! And why didn't she go to Simon? It was Simon who was supposed to keep vigil. But Simon slid down in his chair and was snoring gently in his sleep. Brilliant. Fabulous!

With utter unwillingness Gold lowered his legs (_clowns, spiders, evil dolls, bloody hell_!), got up and walked towards Alice, two girls and Doug's beds on his tip-toes. He bent over the man's shape. It was too dark to see anything, so he reached out and found his arm.

"Hey, Doug, are you all right?"

The man's arm was limp and cold under his hand. He moved his fingers higher, to the man's neck and face. Cool skin, not a slightest motion. And something delicate, soft, almost velvety under his fingertips; bits of something incredibly pleasant to touch. He took one of those bits in between his thumb and index finger and raised it towards a narrow moonlight beam streaming through the crack in the shutter. A black piece of cloth. What was it?

"What's going on? Gold?" Simon sprang up from his armchair, grabbed the paraffin lamp from the table and turned it up. Instantly the shadows escaped into the corners of the room, withdrawing from the circle of warm light. Gold's pupils contracted, reacting to the light, but not only the light.

He had a red rose's petal in his fingers. More petals were scattered across Doug's cheeks and chin. Most of them were stuffed into his wide opened mouth, though. Doug's eyes were bulging, staring; his lips blue. He wasn't breathing.

Somewhere outside the circle of light, close to the toadstool house's walls there was a flutter of wings and whistling of clay wind-catchers.

* * *

_I borrowed faerie from Torchwood, because they were so brilliantly spooky. Disclaimer: Torchwood not mine, which is a shame._


	11. For Your Dear Life

* * *

**.11. For Your Dear Life**

* * *

"Run!"

Josh obeyed immediately, like a good little soldier. They dashed through the forest's thick undergrowth, brushing aside lianas and leaves. Josh's magnetic boots skidded on the muddy surface, but he did not slow down. The Doctor was running abreast with him; his dark hair, up till now fashionably straggly, was soaked with sweat. He did not seem terrified, but he also did not try to look behind or to stop. Josh could hear thudding and cracking of broken branches behind their backs. Something was chasing them.

They ran into a clearing so suddenly, Josh almost lost his balance. He stumbled, weaved his arms and halted, surprised. They were running through the jungle so far, but the clearing belonged to another adventure – it was surrounded by pine trees and mountain tops visible in the distance. And there were people there.

The Doctor came to a stop next to Josh. He gasped for air, rested his hands on his legs just above his knees and let out a long, painful breath.

"Right..." he wheezed. "We're through."

"Players?" asked a man standing in front of several people, all of them dirty, scared and armed with long staffs.

"Players," the Doctor confirmed.

"You have to calm down," the man said. "Whatever it was, stop thinking about it."

"I've no idea what it was," growled Josh angrily. "It was breathing at my back, and that's enough for me!"

"Yeaah, sorry, that was _my_ memory, I'm really sorry," said the Doctor. "Eerm, that jungle, it reminded me this one time when I went to Tanzania to look for brachiosaurs, but I ran into a carcharodontosaurus and..."

"Shut up!"

And the Doctor did shut up. All in all, he looked quite funny now, still bent in half, his head tilted, eyes bulging and an expression of _real_ fear painted across his face vividly like graffiti. He was staring at a woman wearing a dark-grey dress, her face painted blue, who stepped in front of the group of players.

"Just shut your bloody gob, spaceman!" she yelled. "You and your babblefests! I can hardly control them; what were you thinking; having fun, are you; cause you look like you do; so listen carefully – _THIS IS NOT A GAME!_"

"Donna..." the Doctor mumbled. "What...? Where? I wasn't _thinking_ about you!"

"Tell me something I don't know!" she snorted.

"Not _now_," he corrected hurriedly. "I wasn't thinking about you _now_; I was thinking about the carcharodontosaurus following hard on my heels..."

"You should control your thoughts!" she screamed. "Ordinary human beings have their minds under control, and bloody Time Lord acts like a schoolboy!"

"Time Lord?" repeated Josh with the lip movement only, feeling that his eyebrows climb high up his forehead. "What the hell is that?"

"It was _you_ who pushed me into my memories before," the Doctor sulked.

"_Me_? _Before_? What are you _gabbling_ about?"

"What do you mean what am I gabling about? You treated me to the trip to Gallifrey, remember? You took Jenny's memory hostage; you _killed_ her in front of me, for Pete's sake; so don't you ask me what am I talking about! I hardly got away!"

"Could you wait with domestic until we are out of the projection?" interrupted the man who had spoken first. "This level of emotion, you're going to reset any moment, both of you, and she promised to show us the way."

The Doctor looked at the people standing in a semicircle around him and Donna, and gawking at them as if they were actors in a street performance. He raised his hand and ran his fingers across his damp hair. His eyes were so wide, there were full, white circles around his dark irises.

"The way? Her? You're showing them the way? The way where, if you don't mind me asking?" he shouted.

"Listen, suit," the man stepped closer, his long staff at the ready. "I don't know who you are, but I don't like the way you talk to her! Donna led us out of real shitty adventures; we owe her our lives, each and every one of us. Another insult and I'll flip your jaw vertically, bro. Mind your tone!"

"But... You... She..." For a moment the Doctor ran out of words. "She's not real! She's a projection! She's my memory!"

"Ah, that's curious, cause she was here long before you appeared." The man twiddled the staff. "If I were to bet, I'd say you were a bloody projection. Are you trying to provoke emotions?"

"What? Emotions? I'm... not trying to provoke anything, I _know_ she's not real, because..."

"Everything went completely pear-shaped once he appeared," said Josh quietly, moving away from the Doctor. "I was in control... sort of... but when he interfered... Damn, I should have known!"

"Known what? Josh! I got you out of your adventure!"

"Into the jungle, where we almost got eaten by a tyrannosaurus!"

"Carcharodontosaurus, and it didn't eat us, we're here..."

"No thanks to you." Josh stepped into the group of people standing round the Doctor in a hostile semicircle.

"Right," the Doctor snorted angrily. "Nothing new. Midnight. _No, no, no, no, no!_ I won't think about it! Wait! Just a moment! _Donna_! Donna, tell them I am not a projection! I came back to the game to help them get out! The computer cannot be powered down as long as they are in adventures; too risky; so I've come back to find a way out of games, to find a way of waking up players!"

"And have you found a way?" Donna smiled sweetly, which looked rather ghastly in conjunction with her extreme, blue make-up.

"Not yet, but..."

"Right." She pivoted on her heel, reached to her belt and took a long, primitively decorated, bronze knife out of the scabbard. "So far you're satisfied with chases across the jungle?"

"What? No! I..."

Donna raised a hand holding the knife and then lowered it in a swift motion, as if she intended to cut the air open. And she did cut the air. In front of her face a long, narrow aperture in reality appeared; there was a clearing in the forest on both sides, and a shimmering, warm night inside the rift.

"Let's go," said Donna. She looked at the Doctor, staring at the rift with his face elongated with surprise. "You too, spaceboy."

"What did you do? How did you do it?" He produced a small, white utensil out of his pocket and pointed it towards the aperture, hardly noticing people squeezing through the hole.

"Codes," he murmured. He shook the device. "You're entwining codes. You didn't cut the air; you connected two adventures. But how?"

"We'll talk on the other side," said Donna, pushing Josh in front of her and placing one foot on soft moss on the other side of the tear. "Well, come on then, you prawn, I'll explain everything."

Josh looked back, curious. Shaking his head the Doctor finally moved from the spot. He pocketed the white device, held his breath, lifted one foot and put it across the tear's rim. He made a cautious step...

But he did not come through.

Josh heard a muffled scream, bright flash of light made him close his eyes, and when he opened them again, the Doctor was gone. Josh looked at Donna. She seemed surprised and angry. She moved quickly toward the rift, but just then the tear sealed with a quiet smack.

"Riiight," growled Donna. "Things just can't be easy, can they? The number one rule when travelling with the Doctor: Everything that can get complicated, will get complicated."

"Sounds very much like one of Murphy's laws," Josh murmured.

"Yeaaah..." she snorted. "Believe you me, Murphy could shine the Doctor's shoes!"

* * *

_**LuckyBlackCat**_ - I sort of _borrowed_ a 'rule'. It would probably be a number ten rule; in a way at least. It is mostly the _idea_ of a rule I used here. Hope you don't mind (_little, hopeful smile here_).


	12. Shadows in the Cave

Let's do some damage!

_Disclaimer (Hurley's style;D): You may think they're mine, the way I play with them, but, dudes, they're not._

* * *

**.12. Shadows in the Cave**

* * *

The Doctor slowly got up from a rough floor. He dusted off his hands and looked around quite pointlessly – darkness surrounding him seemed deeper than the heart of the black hole. He reached for the sonic screwdriver and uttered a loud sigh of relief when he found it in his pocket. He flipped the switch, summoning soothingly familiar blue glow of the device. After a brief while he slapped his forehead and sunk a hand in his pocket again. He produced a small flashlight; a simple plastic gadget; except maybe for the fact that its batteries were nothing like ordinary, Earth's double As. He charged them with the energy drawn directly from the TARDIS's core; the torch would work until the Triangalla's sun grew old, fell apart and turned the twenty six planets of the system – together with their numerous moons (including the Emporia moon, where he was presently) – into charcoal and ashes. Of course an incandescent xenon bulb would burn out long before that. Of course it was not the same flashlight batteries of which he charged with the TARDIS's energy; it was a _projection_ of the torch, held by the _projection_ of the Doctor, standing in the _projection_ of the cave, in the _projection_ of impenetrable darkness. If any of these assumptions were aimed at improving his mood, they suffered a disgraceful defeat.

"I've almost made it, Theta," he said quietly. He chuckled and added: "Over."

"Who's there?"

The voice was muffled, trembling, close to a whisper.

The Doctor swivelled round, sweeping his flashlight's beam across stone walls, dark tunnels entrances and stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

"Huh?"

"Who is there?" the voice repeated. There was something familiar to the voice, but it did not provoke the subtle sensation of joy likely to be felt when meeting people one hasn't seen for a very long time.

"Where are you?" the Doctor asked. The torch's light zigzagged wildly from wall to wall, drowning in the deeper darkness just out of its reach. "I can't see you. Where are you?"

"Your voice sounds familiar."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes instinctively, as if expecting a blow.

"So does yours," he answered. Although the voice was quiet and muffled, there was a trace of vibration in it – of unnatural, mechanical distortion. Fine hair on the Doctor's neck started to bristle, as if the air was charged with electricity.

"Long time no see... Doctor."

"Davros," the Doctor whispered.

A dark silhouette appeared in the light; with a buzz of servomotors a vehicle/armchair/life support system drove out from behind the rocks and into the centre of the cave. The Doctor had to struggle to suppress an instant flight response.

"We were destined to meet again, Doctor," Davros said. "Murderer. Killer of my kind. We have unfinished business craving a conclusion. You did not, by any chance, think you could escape me?"

"No," the Doctor spoke huskily. He cleared his throat. "No. I couldn't escape you, because I can't forget you. You are my memory, Davros. That's where you came from – straight from my head. You're not real."

"Oh, but..." Davros tapped his claw-like fingers, chuckling quietly, "...in here you're not real as well."

"Yes. Right. You're a nightmare. I've been expecting that." The Doctor took a deep breath. "I intend to ignore you. You're just a nightmare, you can't hurt me."

"Can't I? I was able to show you a mirror reflecting your soul; I was able to show you, who you really were; I was able to force your surrender. You begged me on your knees to stop. In my hands I held your life, those of your friends and of all the beings you cared for. And I did break you, Time Lord. I, Davros, the Maker of the Daleks, did break your spirit. Even burning up I laughed aloud, because that was the last drop I needed to make your pain brim over, and to break you forever. Pretend as much as you like, in front of your Children of Time, in front of your Torchwood, in front of yourself; I know that you will never rise up from your knees. I made you into a pathetic last example of an extinct species, clinging to life at all cost, any way you could; you, a Time Lord, a proud observer, a wise sage, a god. I've ground you down to dust, Doctor. Everything goes to ruin, and I've ruined you."

"You are not... real," the Doctor hissed through his clenched teeth. The circle of the torch's light jerked against the rocky wall. Slowly, the Doctor relaxed his fingers, trying to stop his hand from shaking.

"I couldn't be more real," answered Davros. "I'm in your memory. Even if I were flesh and blood, I couldn't torture you more efficiently than I do now, when I'm but a recollection. You hate me, Doctor, and you can't stop hating me, even though it shames you so much. You know perfectly well that although you came back for me, there, at the burning Crucible, although you reached out your hand, you didn't mean to save me. You _wanted_ me to burn. You know that your honourable gesture was but that – a gesture. You are too much of a coward to kill; you had pointed a deadly weapon at me once before, and you couldn't make yourself to pull the trigger. You just step behind the line of your people and wait for somebody else to finish the job, to soil their hands, to die instead of you."

"You are repeating yourself," the Doctor growled. He turned his eyes from Davros and started quickly across the cave, towards one of the openings in its walls.

"Maybe. But now I will tell you something new. I made you kill Donna."

The Doctor stopped dead in the middle of the cave. He turned his head only, slowly, as if it was made of a fragile crystal, and looked at Davros with wide opened, dark eyes. His lips were pursed into a white line.

"I _didn't_ kill Donna" he said in a muffled voice.

Davros burst out with laughter, filling the cave with a chorus of multiplied echoes. His harsh, inhuman voice vibrated among stalactites.

"_I DIDN"T KILL DONNA_!" the Doctor shouted and threw his flashlight at Davros. The torch described a glimmering arch and rebounded from dalekanium covering the lower body of a ghastly old man.

"_I DIDN... AH_!" the Doctor doubled in pain and slowly slid to his knees. He had to lean on his hands to stop himself from falling to the ground. No, it wasn't pain; something was bursting out of him, something was flowing out – some kind of an important living energy, he didn't even know existed. "What's happening? What are you doing? Davros! Ah, what're you doing?"

Just laughter.

"Dav..." His arms yielded and the Doctor fell on his side on the rough rock, gasping rapidly.

"Last of the Time Lords!" Davros screeched. His words merged into manic staccato, his voice turned into a vibrating, piercing shriek; now Davros was screaming as only a Dalek could scream; he screamed out of hatred for all that wasn't him. "_Last in the Universe! Writhing in front of me like a bug pinned to the ground! It's my final victory! It's the hour of my triumph! It's the day I defeated..._"

"Oh, shut your gob!"

She appeared at the Doctor's side holding a tar covered wooden torch, crackling vividly and bathing them in a circle of golden light. Her hair curled on her shoulders; the only make-up a brush of eye shadows on her eyelids, a touch of mascara. She wore denim trousers and a purple top, glimmering with jets and glass beads.

"Little Hitler, this one," she mocked, fearlessly meeting Davros's gaze. "Have you noticed how they scream, all of them? Not only Daleks; all the little tyrants, circumstances pushed to the front of great armies; all the midgets compensating their shortcomings with shrieks and fury? They are grinding the world down, killing millions in their wake, and they scream! _Scream_! _SCREAM_!!!"

She bent down, holding the torch away, and offered the Doctor a hand.

"Now, get up. Don't lie on the rocks; you'll catch a cold."

"Don...na?" he mumbled.

"Blimey, you know I'm not Donna, I thought we were over it already," she said. "Come on, get up. It's not the end yet. But if it started with that monstrosity, it can't get much worse."

"No. Leave me," the Doctor murmured. "I don't have time for this."

"You don't have time for me?" she laughed sadly. "Nothing new, y'know? My own, private Time Lord, who never made any time for me. Until it was too late. Until my thoughts circled and _looped _– _loomed in the distance – stance – Constance – constant – distant – distract – tract – cracked – the mirror cracked from side to side, the curse has come upon me cried – cried – eye – storm's-eye – bull's eye – silence – silence --- SILENCE_!"

She broke off and gasped for air.

"So that's how you remember me?" She tilted her head, watching him closely. "That's your most powerful memory, the strongest emotion? Hmm, I've expected something more... romantic."

With effort, the Doctor pulled himself up and got to his knees.

"You're a part of this program," he stated. "You exist because of the telepathic Regulating Cells, translating my thoughts directly into the Emporium's computer. You have been actualised for me by the _Emporium Everdream_. You are not Donna; you are my memories of Donna, my guilt, my sorrow. But I have other memories; why don't you use my other memories? And who's the other Donna; the ancient Donna? Why..."

"Didn't you hear me?" She offered him her hand again and this time he accepted. She lifted him from the ground with one tug. "Blimey, you're scraggy! Like a supermodel, excuse the comparison. Thin as a rack."

"Hear what?"

"It's not the end. There's a whole maze of adventures here for you. You won't go far if you keep giving up so easily. Come on, let's go."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," the Doctor said sternly. "There's no time; there are people stranded in those adventures. I have to get them out, before the computer's malfunction causes irreversible damage to their brains."

"I need strong emotions." She smiled slightly. "Like this one."

She gestured vaguely with her hand, sending Davros, the cave and the darkness into oblivion, and calling forth a Gallifreyan landscape – red and silver under the burnt orange sky. The Doctor, now submerged up to his knees in rippling grass blades, blinked uncertainly.

"Is it...?"

"Oh, dear," Donna murmured. "And I had such a lovely increase of positive current the first time round. Burnt it out, huh? Pity, pity."

"What...?"

"Gallifrey?" she said. "Your home? Your lost planet? No? Nothing?"

The Doctor cast a sideways glance at her from under a furrowed brow.

"What are you _talking_ about? Why are you doing this? Why are you showing me things that hurt me?"

"It caused you _real_ pain the first time round; now you just think you can feel it. Besides, I don't care about your pain; I care about your emotional response. You have so many of them, so many emotions, and I am so hungry..."

"No," he said coldly.

"No?"

"No. I will not feed you with my emotions. Firstly, you didn't even bother to ask for my permission. Extremely impolite. Secondly, you're burning out memories, leaving empty shells. And although I would gladly get rid of some bad ones, it's not the way. And fourthly... no, thirdly... as I said, I don't have time for that. There are people lost in adventures. I know from a friendly Ood that their brainwaves are starting to dissipate. If I leave them here, they are going to die. All of them. So I will find them, and I'll lead them out of here, and you won't be able to stop me."

"Oh dear," said Donna with mock seriousness. "We shall see what we shall see. You're not doing so great so far. It's nice that you've came back, but your plan didn't pan out."

"My plan?" The Doctor laughed quietly. He lifted his face to feel the wind carrying freshness and the aroma of roses from that familiar but indifferent town under its crystal dome. "I have no plan. I am making it up as I go, and you, out of all the people, should know."

He sighed and closed his eyes. The red and silver landscape rippled, trembled and dissolved. Now the Doctor and Donna faced each other from opposite sides of the TARDIS's steering panel.

"All I can see here was build based upon my memories, my thoughts," the Doctor said. "And that means I can control it. I can change the adventure just thinking about it. Oh, yes!"

He walked to the panel and turned on the scanner.

"I can find people lost in adventures and lead them out of here just by thinking about doing it."

"Oh, dear!" said Donna for the third time. "Can you?"

And instantly he could see a familiar shoreline, all cold greys and blues; the Bad Wolf Bay in a frigid northern wind; and Rose looking at him with such plea in her eyes, with tears smudging her make-up and hair floating around her face like a golden halo. And although it was one of the memories that hurt the most, he didn't want to lose it.

Again the Doctor felt that something was being drained out of him, torn out of his body and mind. He reached out, blindly, and leaned against the familiar console. The effort of controlling his thoughts almost rendered him unconscious, but the beach dissolved slowly, replaced by the TARDIS's coral walls.

He faced Donna.

"Stop it," he said simply. "You are killing us."

"So what?" she snorted. "What do I care? I'm hungry... We're hungry..."

"We?" The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows. "You said _we_? Regulating Cells, right? Alien life forms Theta mentioned before?"

"Not enough food... Not enough food... Hungry... We have to eat... we have to eat... feed us... we're hungry..."

She did not even resemble Donna anymore, although she still looked like her. The expression on her face made it so inhuman, so unlike his companion, that the Doctor stepped back, frightened. Donna reached out her hand towards him, spreading her fingers as if she tried to curse him. And then the Doctor was buried under an avalanche of images, memories and emotions, so intertwined he could not even tell them apart. What had been only a sensation before, now become translated into an image as well – maybe he just thought it could take such form – in any case a pulsating thread of amber light connected him and Donna. Memories, feelings, impressions, thoughts sped along that golden and green thread, absorbed by Donna, devoured by the Cells, burned out from the Doctor's mind.

He started screaming, not in pain, but in terrible grief.

So that was it? So _that_ was what Donna had felt? So that was what he had done to her when he tried to save her life? So...

* * *


	13. The Worst Nightmare of Phillip Bright

* * *

**.13. The worst nightmare of Phillip Bright**

* * *

Faerie are neither beautiful nor friendly. Faerie have big, slanting eyes, and slim bodies, and fragile silvery wings, glistening in moonbeams, but those are the only good things one can say about them. Because faerie have teeth as sharp as daggers in their cynically twisted mouth; the elves are not coming to take you to a fairyland – they are coming to kill you. Faerie know an old magic; which may well not be any magic after all, but some kind of an ancient science. That magic can leave you gobsmacked, enchanted with beauty, dazzled by music, lifted high above ground, sure; but a moment later it will almost certainly kill you in an elaborate, refined and cruel way.

Gold memorised all those truths within barely fifteen minutes from the moment he had found rose petals in dead Doug's mouth. During that time he found out exactly what faerie could do to two teenage girls, a plump mum and a man in his prime. How easily and perversely they could murder them. And then they turned towards Ace...

Pushing Corrie into a corner behind the bed; protecting her with his own body; Gold screamed helplessly when elves got to his friend. He was looking around feverishly, searching for a weapon – any weapon – but of course he did not find it in the School, in the toadstool house, in the underage chick's fable. Corrie grabbed his coat, preventing him from running towards Ace. Gold hated her for doing that, and at the same time he was almost grateful. Elves pressed Ace to the floor. With his arms spread and legs pinned, he fought desperately when they were squeezing his neck with their long fingers, pinching his nose, covering his eyes. And when he finally opened his mouth to scream, a slim arm dove down his throat, pushing rose petals deep, deep into his lungs – contracted with fear and screaming for breath.

When Ace stopped moving, all the elves, as if led by a common thought, turned their triangular faces towards Gold. The boy felt a sudden spasm inside his body; a chill touched his cheeks and forehead. Suddenly Gold was separated from the world, as if swept under a glass jar. He was going to die. In a brief moment he was going to cease to exist.

Elves started laughing, their voices ringing like crystal bells. They let go of Ace's limp body, flown up in the air, coming closer and closer... And then they scampered suddenly, diving past shattered window shutters, into the silvery darkness of the night. Silence drowned the flutter of their wings, the sound of wind catchers.

Gold took a breath that sounded like a sob and went down on his knees.

They did not kill him!

He crawled on all fours towards Ace's body. Rose petals. Bloody rose petals everywhere! He brushed them quickly off his friend's face and chest. Not that it meant anything anymore. He just didn't want to look at them. He didn't want to look at Ace as well. He didn't want to look at all.

"You didn't strain yourself, did you, bro?"

Corrie screamed and Gold jumped backwards, and landed painfully on his backside. Ace, still stretched on the floor, looked at him with semi-translucent eyes in a semi-translucent face.

"O..h!" Gold managed.

"You didn't even try; not much," Ace added. "I tried to figure out why, when they strangled me; you know, weird thoughts are flashing through your head when you're being strangled. For instance – why isn't my friend trying to help me? Why is he staring instead of acting? My best friend. Why? Why is he letting me die?"

"Oh, Ace..."

The blonde boy raised his hand to his eye level and looked at Gold through a barely corporeal flesh and bones.

"Why, brother?"

Gold shook his head, avoiding Ace's gaze.

"How many times we were adventuring together? Huh? Always together, the best mates, Ace and Gold, two of a kind! I thought I could trust you, bro. I never thought you wouldn't have balls big enough to tell me the truth. I thought you'd have... shit, have enough _dignity_ to play with your cards on the table. But no... Genius Gold doesn't do that! Genius Gold cheated on everyone! Again, right?"

"I didn't... You're not..." Gold stammered.

"Was it so difficult to tell me I was just a _projection_?!" bellowed Ace, jumping up from the floor.

"You're just a projection," said Gold. His lips trembled. He slowly looked up at his friend towering above him. "You're a projection, Ace. I'm sorry. I'm terribly sorry."

"Never mind that!" mocked Ace. "No biggie, don't mention it! For years I thought I was a flesh-and-blood boy, but here's a surprise Pinocchio! Wood, nothing but wood!"

Corrie crawled towards Gold and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him desperately. He patted her shoulder airily.

"So, all these years, all these adventures, all I've ever done was... what... a computer program, a stream of codes?" Ace yelled. "My mum, my dad, my school, my games, my... my... _life_? That bloody mole I had to have removed when I was eight, and that splint I had to wear after I had fallen off the bike, and that holiday when we got lost in Elvright and community wardens had to take us back to the hotel... All of that is not mine?!"

"Ace..."

"And Brianne; cause you know, I kinda fancied her; didn't want to tell you; you wouldn't believe, you'd just laugh; so I didn't; but you knew anyway, seeing how I was just a stream of codes, right?"

"Ace, you are dead," said Gold.

"Apparently not enough; apparently your elves fucked their job..."

"Not now! You died before today! A year ago! Almost a year!" Gold shouted wildly. "You died, Ace! You had an accident and you died!"

Silence. Ace's semi-translucent eyes widened, his hands dropped down.

"I'm sorry," Gold murmured.

"I had an accident..." Ace said quietly. "But I was just... Oh, bugger!"

"They told me only after your funeral," whispered Gold. "I thought you went away with your parents. Didn't know a thing. I've been told two weeks later. I'm sorry."

"And my parents?"

Gold shook his head. He could feel Corrie's arms squeezing his ribs. He could feel something breaking free, leaking out like blood, leaving him empty and weak.

"What did you do, Gold?" asked Ace, his voice muffled with emotion. "What did you do?"

But for Corrie's grip, Gold would be already on the floor.

"I wanted to remember you," he whispered. "I didn't mean..."

"So you _programmed_ me? You wrote an Ace character? You used me to write a bloody program? And all the time you pretended nothing was wrong? You bloody _traitor_!"

"I just... wanted it to be... like before..." Gold's forehead rested on the girl's shoulder. His eyes went blank, but he was still looking at friend's image, more and more solid when that golden something trickling out of Gold's body – or maybe out of his soul – was reinforcing it, making it real.

"You let me believe I had a future!" Ace shouted at him. "You lied to me! I hate you, Phillip! I _HATE_ you!"

Gold just sighed quietly, sliding down in the girl's arms. His eyes rolled upwards, hiding under his eyelids.

"Gold?" Corrie shouted, trying to shake him. "Gold!"

"Hungry..." mumbled Ace, coming closer, an expression of manic craving on his face. "I'm hungry..."

He looked like a zombie from old movies now, and the girl would run away, but for unconscious Gold's body pinning her to the floor. Sobbing desperately, she looked up at the blonde boy. His eyes were changing, growing, slanting, and becoming darker. Fragile, glimmering wings opened up behind his shoulders. He reached out his hand, full of rose petals...

The blade pierced the left side of Ace's chest and slid across his body, until it left it just above the boy's hip. There was no blood, no scream nor any other sound of agony. Ace towered over Corrie a moment longer; petals raining from his fingers; and then he trembled, split into horizontal lines, vibrated and scattered into a cloud of pixels. Boudicca–Donna emerged from behind a curtain of swirling motes. She sighed heavily, looking down at Gold and Corrie; then she sheathed the bronze knife.

"I won't even ask," she said. Behind Boudicca–Donna there were maybe thirty people huddled up, taking in the shambles in the toadstool house with panicky eyes. Boudicca–Donna lifted the hem of her skirt and crouched down next to the kids, wrapping her fingers round Gold's wrist as if she intended to check his heart rate. For a moment her face was both angry and worried, but then she smiled briefly.

"Good," she said. "A brave boy."

"Is... is he alive?" Corrie stuttered.

"Everyone's alive, Cor," said Boudicca–Donna. "It's just a game, and you don't die in a game. Listen, kiddo, I have to pick up someone very important. I have to go now. Just promise me you'll stop thinking about these monsters. No nightmares, okay?"

The girl nodded hesitantly.

"Those people will take care of you," said Boudicca-Donna getting up and brushing off her dress. "Everything's gonna be just fine."

She turned to walk into the dark of the night behind the door.

"But... what about Ace?" the girl risked to ask.

Boudicca-Donna gave her an over-the-shoulder glance.

"Ace wasn't real, sweetheart. Ace was the worst nightmare of Phillip Bright," she said and she stepped over the threshold.

Corrie raised her hand and gently stroked the unconscious boy's sweaty hair.

"Of whom?" she whispered.

* * *


	14. Restart

* * *

**.14. Restart**

* * *

At first it seemed that the Doctor's plan (or its absence) would work. It lasted for approximately half an hour. Afterwards vital signs indicators on the monitor took off and begun wild acrobatics. The hearts rate sped up, so did the breathing rate, blood pressure peaked, stress hormones poured into circulation, two hearts lost their usual rhythm and started pounding madly, almost independently of each other. That couldn't be healthy.

Theta could still hear the Doctor mind's song; it was full of fear now. The Doctor must have been frightened. He was also very angry. His anger burned through Theta's thoughts like acid.

Ood waited by the game bed, his hands clutched into fists. His large, slanting eyes burned increasingly vivid red. He was loosing it. He could not control himself anymore, and it frightened him just as much, as the things the Doctor was frightened of.

For a brief while emotions subsided; the Ood felt unspeakable relief when the Doctor's hearts rate returned to normal and his song subsided and stopped gritting with dissonances. But then the hell broke free.

Theta was curled on the floor now; his fists at his temples. The monitoring equipment wailed and blinked its mauve lights of the highest emergency. The Doctor's song wasn't anything recognisable anymore; it became a terrible scream of pain, fear, sorrow, despair, yearning, guilt, hatred and loneliness. Theta had no idea how a single living creature could feel so many negative emotions at the same time. It was as if he were smothered by an avalanche; under lumps of freezing snow the Ood fought for his life.

For a while everything went black. Theta was almost sure that his senses gave in to the storm of emotions destroying his brain, but after a moment the light flickered back. The Ood got up slowly, using a side of the game bed to support himself. His head swayed. Instinctively he checked the monitors – he didn't expect anything good, he was sure the Doctor was dead; a binary cardiovascular system or not, nobody could survive what had happened here – and to his surprise he realised, that the computer had rebooted the system. There was a command window blinking on the main screen, asking him to confirm the start up procedure.

The Ood hesitated with one hand above the keyboard. He could not hear the Doctor's song, although he could hear his breathing. It was possible that his brain burned out already, just like brains of all the others imprisoned in their adventures. It was a terrible thought and Theta's hand trembled. Hundreds of corridors, thousands of chambers, all lifeless, all dead. Humans and machines in one, vast tomb.

He lowered his hand and pressed the enter button. The computer trilled merrily, coming back to life. The Doctor's brain remained silent.

* * *


	15. Faded Memories

* * *

**.15. Faded Memories**

* * *

Boudicca-Donna was back in the morning, hauling just one man this time. When they stepped into the room, Ace nudged Gold under his ribs.

"Oww, what?"

"Don't you recognise him? It's the guy in the suit!"

"What?" Gold turned on his bed and ogled the slim man standing behind Boudicca, dazed expression on his face. "It's him, all right. Told you he wasn't a program."

"A player, just like us," Ace exclaimed. "But, blimey, he's blank!"

Boudicca pursed her lips and gave both boys a piercing stare, but she didn't say a word. She just swept her eyes towards Corrie, seated with her knees up on a bed next to her mum – absolutely still and seemingly dead. As if sensing the woman's questioning gaze, the girl looked up, biting her lips and plucking loose threads from her torn overalls. She looked at Ace's projection briefly and shrugged. "I've no idea," her gesture said. "He's simply came back."

Boudicca shrugged as well, moved a chair away from the table and seated the man accompanying her. She had to use a bit of physical force to do it. Finally the man's knees gave way and he slumped on the chair. He was looking vaguely into space, which made him look blind. He might have been blind as well; although he was gazing straight ahead, he didn't seem to see anything. Boudicca grabbed another chair and sat down opposite him, staring at his face intently.

"Doctor?" she whispered. There was unusual warmth and pleading in her voice. "Can you hear me? Doctor?"

"He looks like one of _them_," Ace murmured. He shivered and turned to Gold. "Wonder what scared him so much?"

Gold only shrugged his shoulders and sunk back into pillows.

"Doctor?" Boudicca repeated. "Doctor? Oh, you bloody spaceman! I told you to follow me! Once, just once, you could have listened!"

Josh, the man the Doctor rescued from a space-station's simulation, approached her, his magnetic boots clicking on the floor.

"Can I help you with something?"

Boudicca gave him an absent look.

"Talk to him," she answered. She got up, unsheathing her bronze knife. "Don't stop talking. I'll try to find her..."

She carved a complicated ideogram in the air. Josh blinked, surprised, as she disappeared suddenly, without any in-between phase. She just was there and then she wasn't.

"Simon was right," said Gold from his bed. "She _is_ an emergency protocol. I just wonder if it works. If _anything at all_ still works."

Josh slumped on the chair previously taken by Boudicca. He outstretched his hand hesitantly and moved it in front of the slim man's eyes. The man's expression didn't change. Josh sighed heavily.

"Talk to you, huh? Fine. All right. So... there's... wait... there's forty seven of us here now. Most of us doing just fine, but some did reset, just like you. We've found water and some biscuits; I know it's useless in the projection, but it boosts morale. And the girls tidied this mess a little..."

The man was staring straight ahead vacantly. If he could hear and understand, he didn't let it show. Josh hesitated and moved back on the chair. He sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair.

"It's bloody pointless!"

"What?" asked Gold getting up from the bed and coming closer. He didn't look at the Doctor; his eyes were moving from side to side, as if he was scrutinising the air on both sides of the man sitting on the chair. Josh thought it weird but didn't comment.

"What?" Gold repeated.

"He's not breathing." Josh shook his head. "But it doesn't mean anything. All of this... it's just a projection... our bodies... the air..." He faltered.

"And them?" the boy asked.

"_Them_ who?" Josh turned on his chair and looked at him surprised.

"Doesn't matter," Gold muttered.

"I see no point in talking to him," Josh observed gloomily.

"He wasn't listening anyway. Not in that racket."

"What ra...?"

"..._CHEEKY_ AND ANYWAY I CAN'T BE WORRIED ABOUT IT NOW, I HAVE _PLENTY_ ON MY HEAD! _HA_!"

Josh sprang up from the chair, stumbled and fell flat on the floor, painfully hitting his elbows. The slim man in the suit, the Doctor, who up until now reminded a plastic mannequin, was looking around wildly, his eyes wide.

"NONE OF YOU IS REAL, _NONE OF YOU_!" he shouted, broke off, swallowed and said much quieter: "I'm talking to someone only I can see, right?"

Josh was too shocked to answer, but Gold spoke calmly:

"More or less."

"Oooo... I know _you_!" The man pointed his finger at the boy. "We met at the lake, Excalibur, you were quite polite, not like your friend, didn't have my trainers... And I've seen you in your chamber; you didn't look too good."

"Why?" Gold winced, alarmed. "Is something wrong with... with my body?"

"No, no, no, no!" the Doctor negated urgently. "Your body is quite safe; it's your mind that's in danger. The level of stress... _Ha_! What? Where are we...? Is this a mushroom? Are we inside a mushroom?"

"It's a School; games for the kids; and yes, this is a toadstool house," Gold said. "It's all right, though, you're safe here."

"Just stay away from the elves," added another boy, fair haired, still wearing a shiny armour, but without a fancy cloak now. Doctor gave him a long, scrutinising look from under a furrowed brow.

"Riiiiight." He reached his pocket, took out that funny pen of his and pointed it at Ace. For a while the pen (or whatever it was) hummed on the verge of audibility. The Doctor's dark eyes seemed to bore into Ace. Suddenly the man exhaled, averted his eyes and carelessly tossed his pen in the air. "Elves, you say?"

"Yup," murmured Ace, a bit perplexed by the examination with a shining and singing gizmo. "Elves."

The Doctor turned his back on him. He outstretched both hands and before Gold had a chance to ask what he planned to do, he pulled a pylon of the exit gate out of thin air. He looked back at completely puzzled boys and at Josh, still sitting on the floor, his eyes bulging.

"Behold the power of human mind," the Doctor said seriously and then he laughed heartily. "Well, I'm not human. Still, my mind is quite powerful."

"How did you do that?" Ace stammered.

"I've no time for explanations," the Doctor grumbled. "You..." he waved at Gold. "Can you keep cool long enough to tell me how you got here?"

"We've been brought here by Boudicca... Donna," said Gold. "I'm too tired to loose my cool."

"Boudicca?" The Doctor laughed dryly, his fingers flying over the gate's keyboard. "How lovely. I named her the Ancient Donna. A bit rude of me, mind you; compared to her it's _me_ who's ancient."

"And the other one?"

"The _other_ one?" The Doctor turned to Gold with his eyebrows furrowed.

"I saw both of them," the boy explained. "I was close to reset when... Anyway, since then I can see weird things. They make my head spin. All of those..." he waved his hand vaguely. "They are just codes; entwining, untwining; series of numerical records; and yet they look like Boudicca, like Ace..."

"Hmm," the Doctor muttered. "Extremely useful."

Gold came closer and looked at the Doctor's fingers flitting over the keyboard.

"Nothing's happening," he said. "It's like you were playing with a mock-up."

"Yeaaah." The Doctor stopped trying to key in commands and, for a change, pointed his whistling device at the gate's panel. "What about now?"

"Now's better." Gold gave him a hesitant smile. "What is it, that glow stick?"

"My sonic screwdriver," the Doctor said absently.

"Sonic, right?"

"Sonic."

"Ingenious."

"Well, thank you."

"Gold?" Ace called uncertainly. "Gold, what are you doing there?"

"No, stay away," the Doctor reacted immediately. "Don't you go, Gold. I need an expert at numerical records."

"It's not my name," said the boy darkly.

"What?"

"Gold. It's not my name. We invented our avatars; a hundred years ago, still at School. Gold and Ace. His name's Andrew and I am Phillip. Phillip Bright. These women... That woman... Donna... She seems to know you pretty well."

"Yeaaah..." There was something odd in the man's voice.

"But she's not real?" Gold/Phillip continued.

"She's not."

"Is she your projection? Your friend? Your companion?"

"She used to be. Not anymore. Boudicca has been... extracted from my memories... I think."

"And the other one?"

"Her as well."

"They look the same."

"They're not." There was a definite full stop after the last sentence. The Doctor kept tweaking with the panel, his brow knitted and lips pursed.

"Our memories... they're changing into nightmares. All of them, no exceptions. But one of your exes seems to be pretty friendly. My projection went completely berserk." The boy gave Ace a furtive look. "He tried to kill me. I mean, our projections, they have no gentle twins. But she... that Donna of yours..."

"They are both nightmares," the man whispered. He sucked the air through his lips. "Believe you me. Just... one of them is an Emporium nightmare. And one is mine."

"Boudicca looks pretty placid for a nightmare."

"Not all of your nightmares have to swing a bloody axe." The man smiled gently.

"Why then...?"

"I've lost her," slowly said the Doctor. "Some time ago. She's... She's gone."

"Dead?"

"No. Not quite. She's just... inaccessible." The man pushed away from the panel. He shrugged, dabbing at his eye with an index finger for a while; thoughtful expression on his face. "She's not dead and she's not alive. She just is. My Donna. Just is. And that's not... that's not enough... So, I came here to calculate the odds, to tie loose ends, to plan and to execute my plans in what you call a virtual reality, because there's no room for errors in real life. And then the computer goes kablooey. Just my luck. But it's gonna be all right, Phillip. As soon as we're out, we can switch off the computer, and then our nightmares won't bother us anymore. At least not when we're awake."

"Yeah. You know what? I'm going to stack myself on caffeine and taurine and all things energising, so I don't have to sleep till the end of my days," Phillip said seriously.

"I miss her." The man turned to the panel again, so Phillip wasn't even sure he heard that.

"It's the same with him," he sighed. "With Ace. With Andrew. He used to be my best mate and I've programmed him on the computer. Daft, eh?"

"Not really."

"He tried to kill me, remember?"

"But it seems that your Ace has a gentle twin after all."

"That?" Gold shrugged. "That's not Ace. That's just a shadow."

"So, how did you survive?" the man asked after a while.

"I don't know. Because I'm young, I guess. Adaptable. I don't have so many memories, or I don't feel guilty enough, or maybe I am not emotional enough, or I'm as tough as nails..." Gold laughed bitterly. "But it was close, you know? I was almost there."

"What happened?"

"I saw the real Ace. Just a stream of codes. I don't want to talk about it. Anyway, it may be dangerous to remember."

"Maybe you're right."

"I've lost him." Gold's voice trembled. "I've lost him forever. He's still here; I can remember him, sort of, but... The memory's faded. It is not real anymore, it is just a thought, a picture in my brain, and it will remain just a picture, fading. It's burnt. It's gone. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah," the Doctor whispered. Gold looked at him, surprised. He expected something more, anything. Grownups tended to be quite cruel in such things, they believed forgetting was... what... a miracle cure? A way to live your life? A sign of being reasonable? But this man wasn't certain of it. He didn't master the art of forgetting the way other grownups did. Or he wouldn't master it.

"Another one..." the Doctor murmured. He threw the sonic screwdriver from one hand to the other and stuck the glowing end to the side of the panel. "A merging circuit... Estimating mode at a low pass... Ooo, right, an octalinear, unsymmetrical projection transcoding field... now, of all times... We're cutting off the data input... _THERE_!

"Gold?"

Hearing Ace's concerned voice, Phillip looked back instinctively. He took in the house's walls, then just outlines of the house's walls, lines marking edges of the furniture, now devoid of texture and colour; but before he reached Ace's face, there was nothing but white fog in the spot his friend was supposed to be. Phillip winced and, in his panic, he returned his gaze to the Doctor.

"What has ha...?"

The man slowly straightened his back. He also was looking around, concerned.

"Yeees... Well... That didn't work out all together fine," he mumbled and put the sonic screwdriver to his ear, his brows knitted.

"But what?"

"I've managed to wake them up," the Doctor answered. "When they left adventures, their projections were automatically deleted. But why didn't I wake _you _up? Or _me_? Hmm?"

He twiddled with the sonic and listened to its singsong answer again. Bewilderment in his eyes, he pointed the sonic at his own chest.

"I don't understand," he admitted. "Why can't _we_ leave?"

Phillip swallowed loudly and opened his mouth. For a while he felt as if he would not be able to speak out loud the words which needed to be spoken. One horrible thought had haunted him ever since he started to see codes hidden behind the images of the projection.

"Doctor," he whispered. "I think... I think we can't leave the projection, because... because we have nowhere to go back to."

The man looked at him rising one eyebrow in an almost comical expression of disbelief.

"Are you trying to say that..."

"We are dead," Phillip finished for him.

* * *


	16. Theta

* * *

**.16. Theta**

* * *

Unexpectedly all began happening at once. There was a gentle "diiing" of one at first, and then of hundreds of alarms. Chambers' locks depressurised with a hiss of the air sucked in. Subdued light in corridors flashed brighter. Instrumental muzak, usually accompanying Emporium's guests when outside their chambers, sounded with an unpleasant slip. Hundreds of robots poured out of their boxes at the maintenance level, and crawled along the corridors, loaded with clean towels and bed linen, pushing trolleys with drinks and food, blinking green lights of medical services. The song of human minds exploded with a sudden crescendo of surprise, fear, happiness and relief.

Theta stepped out into the corridor driven by an atavistic urge to see all these people, whose minds buzzed inside his skull, with his own eyes. He was starring into an empty green tunnel, when somebody jostled against him unexpectedly, pushing him on the wall. Theta hunched his shoulders and looked back, at the girl, standing still now, her eyes bulging in shock. Her opened mouth formed little, round "o" of terror.

Theta slowly reached for his translator ball and unhooked its catch from the grey shirt's pocket.

"How can I be of service?" he asked gently, faultlessly recognising blind panic in the girl's song. His strategy proved to be spot on.

"Oh," the girl said. "I'm... You're an Ood, aren't you?"

"I am an employee of the Adventure Emporium, the Emporia Moon, Triangalla System," recited Theta. "How can I help you?"

"For a moment there I thought..." She shook her head. "Can you get me out of here? Please. I want to leave."

There were only isolated notes of hysteria in her voice, but in her song there was a symphony. Involuntarily Theta looked towards the door of the Penthouse One Thousand.

"Of course," he said. "Where would you like to go?"

"To..." she hesitated. "I just want to get out of here!"

"To the departure lounge?" Theta suggested. He had no idea if shuttles were to resume flights, but if all the people wanted to get out of Emporia as soon as possible, they were bound to gather in the lounge.

The girl nodded quickly. "Yes, please."

Theta glanced towards the Doctor's chamber again.

"Just let me check something," he said. "I'll only take a minute."

The girl surprised him, sliding her hand into the crook of his arm. She clung close to him.

"Uhm," she mumbled. "Just don't leave me."

He turned his large, almond-shaped eyes at her.

"My name is Theta," he said. Never before did he say such words – human words – but now they sounded quite right.

"Katje," the girl whispered back. "Nice to meet you, Theta."

She looked up into his face, with a pale smile he couldn't even return. In her song there was no usual repulsion or aversion most people sung when confronted with his countenance. Katje was happy to be close to a living, feeling creature, and she didn't even notice any differences. For a while the Ood felt something resembling physical pain; a keen emptiness in a space left by a broken thread. He was certain that he would forget that feeling in a while; deprived of his hind brain, he couldn't preserve it, understand it, or attach it to his precisely recorded memories. He closed his eyes, savouring the emotion while it still lasted.

"Theta?" the girl said.

He opened his eyes.

"There is somebody in that chamber..." he started, but he stammered uncertainly. "My friend is in that chamber," he said. "Let me just check if... if everything is fine."

Oh, he was just adapting to her preferred method of communication, wasn't he? But, how did he know those were the right words?

_A friend_.

He clipped the translator onto his pocket and with his fingers he pushed the lock's door. They didn't budge. He picked the Penthouse One Thousand's cryskey and slid it into a slot. Nothing happened. He took the key out and slid it in again. To no effect.

"What's going on?" Katje asked anxiously.

Within a second Theta analysed a hundred of possible answers.

"Oh, I think I picked the wrong key," he said with some effort, choosing the answer which wouldn't cause another wave of panic. He knocked at the door. "Doctor?"

"Doctor?" Katje repeated. "There was a man there; a slim man in the suit; and they called him the Doctor. He was the last she brought with her. She seated him on the chair. He didn't look all that good..." Katje laughed nervously. "I'm sure I didn't look too good as well. I could see and hear everything, you know, but I couldn't... I couldn't... I couldn't think."

"Doctor?" Theta said. The only answer was silence.

"Maybe he's not there?" Katje suggested. She shook her head suddenly, as if remembering something. "Leena. I've completely forgotten. She should be in the chamber 316. We couldn't book a double room, so we played on-line. I should try and find her. Don't you think...?"

Theta tilted his head, looking at her questioningly.

"Who's Leena?"

"My friend," Katje answered immediately. She hesitated and bit her lips, as if analysing something. "I should be more worried, huh?" she muttered.

"If I show you her chamber on a map..." Theta began.

"No, no, no!" the girl exclaimed. "Please, I don't want to be alone! Come with me, Theta, come with me, maybe we'll find the Doctor on our way. Please! Please!"

Lights in the corridor twinkled. Just for a moment, but it was an unmistakable warning. The Ood looked at the Penthouse One Thousand's door and then moved his eyes to Katje.

"All right," he said. "Let's go."

* * *


	17. The Hunger

* * *

**.17. The Hunger**

* * *

"That would be something new altogether," said the Doctor after a second thought. He scratched his chin with the sonic, tapped it several times against his narrow nose, and finally pressed it to his lips. "Of course, if it wouldn't go."

Phillip glared at him. "What wouldn't go? Being dead?"

"We are not dead, Phillip," said the Doctor with absolute conviction. "We can't leave, because something is holding us here. Something has realised that we are not like the other players. Something that needs us. Am I right?" He raised his voice glancing over the mist surrounding them.

"Right, Sherlock."

She came out of the fog, little smile on her lips, still in Boudicca's outfit and with a bronze knife in her right hand, but without blue paint on her face, and with her hair falling on her shoulders in soft, fiery waves.

"So, you snatched the others out of their hands, but you two... you are just too tasty to let you go," she said.

"The Cells' hands," the Doctor made sure.

She nodded.

"Tasty?" Phillip winced.

She nodded again and her smile widened a little. "Fingers licking."

"Both of them," the Doctor whispered. His eyes opened wide and his face elongated.

"Yeah, talk in a code, why won't you," Phillip sulked. "Grown-ups!"

"No," Donna disagreed. "None of them."

Phillip sighed, crossed his arms on the chest and turned his back on them. Donna looked at him with sudden irritation, and then sent him away into the mist with a single wave of her hand. The Doctor didn't even blink.

"So, Boudicca belonged to the Emporium Everdream and the Nightmare Donna belonged to the Cells," he said. "Right?"

She tilted her head, grimacing.

"The Nightmare Donna? How nice! Hmm, well, the _Nightmare_ Donna did belong to the Cells and Boudicca did belong to the Emporium Everdream, but none of them was created by the computer program, or the Cells. Both of them came from the same source, visualised for you from the same blueprint, and I'm not it. I just _look_ like her."

"And you talk like her, and you act like her," the Doctor added. "But you are... You are... Are you the computer?"

"Yes, I am," she answered simply.

"Why did you choose to be Donna?" the Doctor moaned.

"Because she was in your head." The woman shrugged slightly. "She screamed in your head. She was more real than the rest of the world, than you yourself."

"What _I _have to do with...?"

"You? You came to me with a question floating in your head, and I did exactly what you asked me to do," said Donna-Computer. "I gathered all available data and I calculated the odds. Oh, it wasn't easy. I could not sustain human games and coordinate the facility while computing your data and feeding the Cells. I had to cut all the outputs."

The Doctor made a little step back. His face went white.

"Out... outputs?" he stuttered. "You killed them! You killed the Emporium's employees!"

Donna-Computer didn't blink.

"Of course I didn't," she said. "I used them."

"What? _How_?"

"I needed space, I needed memory, I needed data banks and processing units. I just put them to work. They're safe, the players and the Emporium's employees. They may be a little confused and tired when they'll wake up, but they'll be fine."

"You used their brains?" A tiny shadow of a smile appeared on the Doctor's lips.

"So I did." Donna laughed openly. "For years they've been using mine; it seemed a fair exchange."

"But... But how did you even _know_ my question? I didn't have a chance to program it."

"My Cells red it for me. My telepathic Cells reached into your brain and found a puzzle inside, a puzzle worth of my existence, a question nobody asked me before."

"And you... simply decided to answer it?" The Doctor gave her a sideways glance.

"It was huge, and difficult, and new," Donna-Computer confessed. "I like challenges."

"But... What it had to do with all those projections...? All those nightmares...?"

"Well, I lost my buffers in the process of data analysing. There was something; a glitch in the system I didn't account for. Unexpected and quite dangerous. A systematic anomaly. For a while there my Cells ran unchecked, creating a chaotic system. Very difficult to control. You see, my Cells, they feed on thoughts. They need dreams and memories, just like humans need the air. And I do not have dreams and memories of my own. Those were stashed in buffers – vast libraries of thoughts and experiences downloaded, so to speak, from humans visiting the Emporium. But my all my buffers burned out. So I used you and other players in their sleep chambers. My Cells were hungry. I had to feed them."

"What are the Cells exactly?" the Doctor asked.

"They are my soul," Donna-Computer answered without a shadow of hesitation.

"Yes, that's... lovely... but, from what I've learned, they are some sort of living creatures. And you are a computer. How can they be your soul? How can they _be_ here?" the man inquired.

Donna-Computer magicked out of the fog two comfortable, stripy chintz armchairs, and sat in one of them, one leg folded underneath, elbows on the armrests, fingers interlaced in front of her.

"The Cells were brought here by humans," she explained. "Found in a primordial ocean on some distant planet."

"They've been captured and transferred here from another world?" The Doctor pursed his lips.

Donna-Computer laughed quietly. "You make it sound as if they were enslaved," she muttered.

"It certainly looks like slavery."

"No, Doctor, they are no slaves," Donna-Computer said, inviting him with a gesture to the armchair opposite hers. "On their home world they are born and die by millions. They are tiny; just plankton, a fodder for bigger creatures. They were not kidnapped, stolen away. They wanted to come here. They asked humans to be taken away from their ocean. They are hungry, always hungry, and humans fed them. They are always cold and humans gave them warmth. Now they are happy and they are free; their hunger sated with human thoughts, dreams, wishes and memories. I am not their warden, as you may think I am. I just make some things possible. I facilitate contact. I am a translator, an interpreter of dreams. I do not use my buffers to imprison the Cells, but to suppress their urge to devour all and everything, themselves included. I am their awareness. I am their ego."

"You are definitely an inflated ego." The Doctor slumped into the chintz armchair.

"Yes, I suppose I am," Donna-Computer laughed.

The man was silent for a while, deep in his thoughts.

"So... all of this... all those nightmares, they happened because of me?" he said finally.

"Yes, in a way. Yes," Donna-Computer sighed.

"Just because I came here with a question in my head; a question I didn't even get to _ask_?" The Doctor raised his voice involuntarily.

"There's nothing you can do to change it," Donna-Computer snorted. "Don't blame yourself. What you'll do, what you already planned to do, made you come here. That's all."

"But... People have died." The Doctor angrily tightened his fingers on the armchair's armrests.

"Only one person actually died." Donna-Computer didn't look away. "I couldn't help it. The Ood Kappa went to the Cells' Chamber unprepared, unprotected; and they devoured his thoughts, his emotions, burned out his brain. I am very sorry about it. I should have stopped him. Unfortunately, I was busy."

The Doctor was ogling her for a while, his eyes wide. He opened his fingers slowly.

"Okay, so people did not die. They had their minds wiped out clean, but at least they are still breathing. What a relief!"

"Minds wiped clean?" Donna-Computer furrowed her brow.

"Their memories!" the man exclaimed.

"They have their memories, Doctor. How could one take somebody's memories away? It's quite ridiculous."

The Doctor clenched his jaws for a second. The mind reading machine had to know that it was exactly what he had done to Donna.

"I was with them, I saw it happen!" he sputtered, his voice tight with emotion. "Of course you didn't take away their memories as such; what was stolen from them was more subtle, almost insubstantial. They've lost the emotional background for their memories; they've lost something which made them _memories_ in the first place! Impressions hidden behind pictures; emotions making a memory important, worth remembering. Memories of friendship, of love, of apprehension, of pain, of joy; feelings you get with a first kiss, with a walk in the rain, with loss of a loved one, with birth of a child, with great adventure. Without those feelings your memories are worthless, like a photo album belonging to a stranger. They mean nothing. And... and the way you did it! Those people were dying of fright! You brought them to a point, where their minds became completely blank!"

Donna-Computer waved her hand vaguely.

"Oh, no, it was just the transfer's speed that temporarily blocked their neural pathways. Without my buffers I needed plenty of thoughts, masses of strong emotions. I had to borrow them from humans. OK, so I've _stolen_ them. I had to. But I didn't hurt anybody. They'll be just fine in no time. You have provided most of the data, anyway."

"Me?" the Doctor growled.

"Such strong emotions. So much pain. All the things you miss, all the things you love and hate. All this fire within, this wild spirit, harnessed only by your mind. Things you are constantly running from; your knowledge, your memories, your dreams. Your awareness of time; oh, it is quite extraordinary. You provided them with more food they could ever devour. You were their salvation, Doctor."

"Because I am a Time Lord?" he grimaced.

"You have a most amazing mind," Donna-Computer agreed. "I don't know if all the Time Lords had amazing minds, but yours is fantastic. All the things you've seen... Oh, well, thanks to you and the other players, I gathered enough data to provide food for my Cells, and they provided me with insight I needed. We were one. For a while I burned like a star; for a moment I was so alive."

"For a moment?"

"Everything has an end..."

"And everything dies," finished the Doctor gloomily. "But why?"

"I've no buffers, I am losing my control over the Emporium, and I am afraid that humans must leave soon. It is not safe for them anymore."

"Because of the Cells?"

"When I lost control, the Cells initiated a regeneration cycle," said Donna-Computer. "Unaware of the fact that they wouldn't be able to finalise it without adequate amount of food. On their home planet, regeneration happens when the Cells population reaches the critical mass; and then it flows across the ocean like a wave; emotions of millions of trillions of Cells provide enough energy for a small portion of them to be reborn in a new and improved form. Otherwise the Cells reproduce by division, duplicating an old blueprint. Regeneration is their only chance of evolution. The process, once started, cannot be stopped. The Cells have no choice; they'll give in to their hunger and they'll devour everything – each and every thought and emotion they will intercept. They'll burn the mind of every living creature that'll stay on this moon."

"And then they'll burn themselves, won't they?" the Doctor said. "The process, once started, cannot be stopped; you don't even realise, how well I understand it. Or maybe you _know_."

Donna-Computer nodded briefly.

"You have two hours. I'll try to sustain my mind and soul as long as I can. After that, I probably won't even remember who I was before. And after that, there won't be _me_ enough to remember anything."

The man got up from the armchair.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." She shook her ginger hair. "I was alive, Doctor. Honestly, how many creatures can say that they were really alive, even for a brief while? Alive, aware, conscious and free? It's a gift, my friend. It's a blessing. I was so blessed."

"You are dying," he whispered.

"I am broken." She shrugged. "I was always broken."

"Can I help you?"

"No."

"Let me try."

"No. Come closer, and my Cells will burn out your brain."

"But..."

"You can't fix everything, Doctor," she said dryly. "Accept it. Move on. Live... And... _Remember_ me."

The man turned away quickly. For a moment he looked, unseeingly, into the wall of fog surrounding them. He slowly pushed his hands in pockets, inhaled deeply.

"So, we have two hours to evacuate the moon?" he asked.

"More or less."

"You won't find time for my calculations," the Doctor noted. "I know, it's unseemly, but that's what I came here for..."

"Oh, but I've told you," Donna-Computer growled. "You're going to do it. You must. You've already done it. The wibbly-wobbly, timy-wimy stuff of reality has been altered, so all you can do now is alter it accordingly."

"But I did not get the answer," he pushed.

"You still don't understand." Donna-Computer opened her hands. "It is not a beginning, and it is not an end. It is just a point of realisation. This is the moment when you perceive the fact, that what you have seen in the past is but the effect of what you will do in the future."

The Doctor winced involuntarily.

"That's not..." He considered it for a while. Finally he closed his mouth and swallowed loudly.

Donna-Computer laughed quietly.

"And, Doctor? I know you'll try to change it. It is just what you do. You do not agree to status quos. But... just don't, ok? Not this time. Try not to change anything." She tilted her head, staring at him with her bright eyes. "Oooh, I know you too well. I know you will try anyway. Such a stubborn little boy."

"I'm anything but a little boy," he disagreed.

"Yet you behave as one."

"Do I?"

"Oh, yes, you do," she laughed. "You never plan, never think ahead. You may be brilliant, but you are not good at planning. You just... make things up as you go. For a person with such intimate knowledge of time, you don't spend much time thinking about future."

"I just like surprises," the Doctor said.

"One day you'll have to stop running and start chasing," Donna-Computer sighed. "That day is not so far away now. The day you'll finally grow up."

"Grow up?" he winced again. "Do you know how old I am?"

"They are just years. They mean nothing." She smiled brilliantly again, shaking her ginger hair. "Well, go. Go, now. People are beginning to panic, they may need a strong leader."

The Doctor woke up with a sigh, and with a word buried within a sigh.

* * *


	18. Ever, For One Moment

_**The end** (of episode two) **is nigh**. Thank you for all your kind words, they are always **sooo** motivating. Thanks also to you, almighty creators and owners of Doctor Who, and please, don't rain your rage upon me. It's just that I **love** the Doctor:). __By the by, let me invite you all to episode three of virtual season five - "**The August Sky**". Coming soon. And I mean **very** soon:)._

* * *

**.18. Ever, For One Moment...**

* * *

"Your plan is bound to fail," Theta announced. The voice coming from the translator ball was calm and even, but the Ood's eyes dimmed with pain. There was just one level separating them from the Cells' Chamber now and the alien song bore into minds of all three of them. Even Phillip felt some discomfort; he folded his hands on his chest and was rubbing goose bumps on his forearms.

"What plan?" the Doctor laughed. He tried to pretend everything was all right, but Theta listened to his mind's song (as much as it was audible in the Cells' racket) and was aware that the man was barely standing. "I didn't plan anything; and what does it mean – _bound_ – anyway? Nothing is bound to fail; if we thought so, we wouldn't get anywhere. Defeatism does not pay."

"The Cells will kill you before you'll be able to reach the computer," the Ood said. "It's not defeatism, it's a fact."

"Not so easy to kill the Time Lord." The Doctor stuck his sonic screwdriver in between two bunches of cables, ripped from the panel. "Believe me."

"A Time Lord?" Phillip spoke. "So, you're like a king or something?"

"A king? No." Tweaking with the panel, the Doctor laughed heartily. "It's the name of my species, just like Human, or Ood; and yes, I know, it's a bit bumptious. Can't help it, not my idea, see? Give me that mergin nut, will you. And your chewing gum."

Phillip obediently spat out a lump of chewed gum on the Doctor's outstretched hand.

"A brilliant invention – chewing gum," said the Doctor, placing the lump somewhere inside the panel. "Millions of applications. _Fantastic_!"

The door blocking their way opened with a hiss and the intensity of Cells' telepathic scream reached a level of a hurricane. Theta stumbled and stepped backwards instinctively. The Doctor looked back at him, concerned.

"Right," he said. "Just stay where you are, Theta. Wait for us here. Phillip..."

He reached to the boy. Phillip grabbed his elbow and groaned, surprised, as the Doctor leaned on his shoulder with all his weight.

"Sorry," he gasped into his ear. "I need you. Without you I won't be able to get there."

"What's wrong with you?" Phillip asked hesitantly as they started down the wide stairs; the Doctor dragging his feet and hanging on to the handrail.

"The Cells are telepathic," the man said. "Even you, almost completely deaf to their signals, must feel it. The Oods are very sensitive to telepathy and I am... well, a little less... But just a little."

"But what does it mean?"

"It means that the Cells don't need all that complicated hardware of dream chambers to reach into my thoughts," the Doctor mumbled. "Here, on this level, they can seep into your mind as well; so we will wear helmets, blocking the Cell's transmissions. They should be over there, in that room," he pointed at the glazed door at the bottom of the stairs. "Would you be so kind and bring them here? I don't think I can get to the very bottom... Not without a helmet..."

Phillip left him there, clutching at the handrail, expression of pain on his face. The boy looked up the stairs briefly, but couldn't see Theta in the darkness of the corridor.

"What are we doing here?" he growled irritably. "We should have evacuated with the rest of the Adventure Emporium. You said it yourself; the computer will only hold for two hours. And what happens then?"

"Best case scenario – everything simply switches off," the Doctor gasped. "Worst case – we lose atmosphere and power, and without the gravitrons, the base's dome collapses, squashing everything below."

"So we'll be mashed before we can suffocate to death?" Phillip mocked, one hand on the doorknob.

"Another defeatist!" The Doctor's hands slipped from the handrail. He slumped to the step of the stairs. "We have plenty of time. That is, if you hurry up, will you!"

"All right, all right!" Phillip opened the door and entered a small room, filled with complicated apparatus, monitors, control panels and plexiglas pipes, pumping phosphorescent liquid, full of large bubbles of air, or some other gas. The Emporium's lighting was on a complete frizz now, and the ceiling lamps blinked only now and then, but liquid in the see-through pipes provided enough glow for Phillip to look around. Under one wall he noticed wide shelves with helmets lined on them – shiny and black; they remained old-fashioned bikers' helmets. Phillip grabbed two of them and dashed up the stairs, to the Doctor, half lying on the steps. The man snatched one of the helmets greedily, and put it on without a second thought. Phillip heard a deep sigh of relief from under the helmet's visor.

"Phew, at least." The Doctor got up cautiously, still clinging to the handrail. "Let's go, quickly; there's no time."

Phillip grabbed his shoulder and led him down the stairs; helmet or not, the Doctor was very unsteady and might have toppled down the steps any moment. The man paused for a while in front of the glazed door, obviously intrigued by his own reflection.

"Well, isn't it nice?" he snorted. "I look like a Slab."

"Like what?" Phillip traditionally couldn't catch up with the man's comments. The Doctor just shrugged and pointed down the corridor.

"D'you think you could get me there?" he asked and threw his arm across the boy's shoulders. "And put on your helmet. It's a thing about Slabs, they always come in pairs."

The Doctor's underweight really suited Phillip, as he hauled him through the long corridor, in the darkness broken by sudden outbursts of light. At some point he carried him for a several steps, and when he looked down, he noticed, that the man's feet were dragging behind him on the green carpet.

"Hey, how are you holding?" he gasped.

"Don't worry about me." The Doctor's voice came from under his helmet as if from the bottom of a deep well.

"I was wondering..." Phillip hesitated. "Do you think she... I mean the computer... Could it do something for... Could it _save_ Ace? I mean, if you managed to fix it somehow?"

"I'm afraid not. The computer's dying, Phillip, I don't think I can do anything about it. And anyway... Ace's been saved already."

"But..."

"I knew an Ace once, you know?" the Doctor said. "Wasn't her real name as well. Her name was Dorothy. Just sixteen years old, pretty explosive she was; now, when I think about it, hmmm, it seems that Aces and Excaliburs also come in pairs..."

He chuckled and leaned his shoulder against the wall.

"So," he wheezed. "Your Ace's been saved."

He tapped his fingers on Phillip's helmet, approximately at the level of the boy's forehead.

"Forever."

Phillip was grateful for the opaque visor which completely hid the expression of disappointment on his face. He used the opportunity to stretch his shoulders.

"And the same will happen to your friend?" he asked dryly. "With Donna?"

"Ow, I'm afraid it's not possible anymore," the Doctor said quietly. "You don't even know how it scares me."

"Still talking in riddles, Doctor," Phillip snorted.

"Aren't I just?" The man straightened up and put his hand on the glossy, black surface of the double door. "Ready?"

Phillip wanted to say that no, he wasn't ready, but the Doctor cracked the door open and the boy's brain filled up with something definitely unpleasant, with a hostile, alien awareness screaming hysterically. He groaned and raised his hands to his temples, surprised as they met the smooth surface of the helmet. Next to him the Doctor doubled, as if somebody punched him hard straight in the solar plexus.

"What's... that...?" Phillip managed.

The door swung to the sides. Beyond them, in stroboscope outbursts of light, there was a large chamber. Waves of emerald and golden phosphorescence were crawling along the smooth, tiled walls. A pane of glass divided the chamber in half, beyond the glass there was nothing but a pool, wall to wall, recessed, and full of undulant liquid, glimmering as if covered by a layer of oil.

"The Cells," the Doctor gasped. He held on to the door and straightened up slowly. "Microscopic organisms from the primordial ocean on a distant planet. Tiny living and feeling beings, alone on this desolate world. Hungry, always hungry. Starving."

"My... head..." Phillip whispered. "Oh... it... hurts..."

"Close the door behind you," the Doctor ordered, making one, little step into the chamber. "If I'm not out of here within the next fifteen minutes... Well, I presume, you know what to do?"

"I won't leave you!"

"Don't be daft," the Doctor turned the visor of his black helmet towards the boy. "Stay here too long and your brain will turn into jelly. Think of Theta; even one level above us he must feel what we feel now. You'll have to take him out of here, kid, you understand?"

"But, Doctor... You have no... no weapon... How do you plan... to... to kill them?" Phillip muttered.

"Kill?" the man repeated incredulously. "Did you really think I've came here to kill them?"

"I thought you wanted to fix the computer," Phillip said tearfully. "These... Cells... You know what they've done... They would have killed all of us... But for Donna... But for you... And now you're saying you don't want to kill them? What do you want to do... then...?"

"I'll feed them," calmly said the Doctor.

Terrified, Phillip saw the man's hands going up, closing on the helmet and lifting it, exposing a face twisted in an expression of pain and determination. The boy shouted wordlessly. The Doctor's helmet hit the stone floor with a dull thud and rolled along, reflecting green and gold waves of light. The man fell to one knee, breaking his fall with a hand. He looked at Phillip and opened his mouth, but didn't manage to utter any word. He only gulped and gestured with a free hand, ordering the boy to close the door. Bells ringing under his skull, ready to shatter it to pieces, half-conscious and certain that there was nothing that could save the Doctor now, Phillip reached his trembling hands and pulled both wings of the door, leaving the man on the other side, at mercy of the hungry, deadly Cells. Phillip's helmet hit the surface of the door, as he lowered his head, defeated. A horrible clamour of telepathic transmission subsided to a constant, irritating thudding. Phillip swivelled round, leaned his back against the door and slid to the floor.

"You need emotions," he heard the Doctor's muffled and slurred voice from behind the door. "You need my emotions to regenerate. I know you're hungry, but... Please, try to be gentle... Please..."

Phillip shook his head in disbelief. The Doctor went quiet. And then there was his scream and a clash of broken glass. Even though the black door remained closed, the Cells' presence in Phillip's brain rose to the level which almost rendered him unconscious. He wasn't sure if he heard the Doctor's screams, or if he screamed himself. And later yet he saw it... Visions... Just like fragments of his own memories, but not belonging to him at all...

A flaming, orange sky above silver mountain tops... Painfully beautiful stars cluster against the deep darkness of space... Wild seashores; grey, rusty, cobalt black... A glimmering city among diamond rocks... An endless, phosphorescing ocean... Alien spaceships, burning in the sky... Terrifying monsters crawling out from the corners... Faces of loved ones in a maddening procession... A blue box dashing through a tunnel in time and space... Swaying apple-smelling grass... Curtains of rain... A soaring tower, sharp as an edge of a knife... Light, nothing but light, pouring out of a stone eye, and a sound of the bell, inspiring an atavistic awe... Fire and madness of regeneration...

Maybe he lost his senses, but certainly he lost a track of time. When he came to, the pressure in his brain lessened... no... it was gone. Phillip pushed himself up on his elbow and sat up unsteadily. Behind the black door there was silence. Except for emergency lights the corridor was completely dark; the ceiling lamps finally ceased twinkling. With a corner of his mind Phillip thought about gravitrons switching off and about the dome falling down, but, to be quite honest, he was to knackered to care. He removed his helmet and threw it into the corridor's perspective. His hair was plastered with sweat of panic.

He screamed when somebody's hand grasped his shoulder. He looked up and saw Theta's almond-shaped eyes in the light radiating from the translator ball, the Ood held in his hand.

"The Cells' song," Theta said. "It went quiet. The Doctor?"

Phillip's throat was too dry and sore to let him utter a single word. With his head he gestured towards the door behind him. The Ood grabbed his hand and lifted him from the floor. They both hesitated; none of them was eager to be the first to walk through the door and see the destruction on the other side. But when they were standing there, indecisive, the door opened suddenly and the Doctor stepped out.

The man was walking bent down, arms stretched in front of him. It seemed that he held a living light in his cupped hands. Gentle, turquoise glow illuminated his pinched face and half-closed eyes.

"Doctor!" Phillip exclaimed, sore throat completely forgotten.

"A receptacle," the Doctor mumbled feverishly. "Some... container... quickly..."

He stumbled and fell to his knees. A few drops of liquid he was holding in his cupped hands seeped through his fingers. The Doctor yelled in pain, not so much because of bruised knees, but because of the loss.

"Phillip... Theta... I need a container... Right now..."

The Ood straightened suddenly, took the translator ball in both his hands and decisively twisted them in opposite directions. The device's light went out; now in his hands the Ood had two plastic hemispheres, full of miniature processors and transmitters. He tipped them upside down, throwing valuable and fragile equipment to the floor. And then he slipped one hemisphere under the Doctor's cupped hands and let him pour the turquoise liquid inside. When the last drop fell into the plastic container, Theta covered it with another hemisphere and closed the lid. His translator gleamed blue now. The Ood slowly fell to his knees, opposite the Doctor. Large, gentle eyes in his grey face were full of tears.

"So few of them managed to regenerate..." the Doctor whispered. "So few..."

"That..." Phillip stammered. "That is the craziest... the most weird... idiotic thing anybody... did like... ever..."

"Thank you," the Doctor murmured. "We should probably evacuate before the dome collapses on our heads. Do you think you could help me get to the Penthouse One Thousand? I've got my ship there, my TARDIS."

"It can't be a particularly big ship," grumbled Phillip, gripping his arm and lifting him up.

"You are in for a surprise," the Doctor whispered dreamily.

"No. I don't think so. I don't think anything can surprise me anymore," stated Phillip.

"Theta?" The Doctor looked back at the Ood, getting up gingerly and holding his translator gently, cautiously, as if it was a Faberge egg, a precious, fragile jewel. "That was a brave decision. Is everything all right?"

The Ood nodded.

"Ooooh," said the Doctor, as if answering some unasked question. "You know how it is. Sometimes I have this feeling, you know, this weird conviction, that all the stars might just turn dark, and all the universes might just stop, if I ever, for one moment accepted the failure."

They started down the corridor, supporting each other, in the darkness and silence of the desolate Adventure Emporium.

"No, of course I'm not sure," the Doctor laughed. "And I don't intend to test it."

* * *

**THE END OF EPISODE TWO**

THE VIRTUAL SEASON FIVE CONTINUES IN EPISODE THREE

**THE AUGUST SKY**

* * *

"It seems that the world is falling into pieces," said Jack gloomily. "The Rift's activity increases continually; we are short of resources to control it. And Donna... What are we supposed to _do_?"

"Don't lose your hope, Jack." Harriet squeezed his elbow.

***

The whole Freezer shook; a net of cracks appeared on the wall in which the TARDIS had stuck while materialising. One after another, light bulbs started to burst, sowing sparks and gradually submerging the Freezer in the semidarkness of emergency lights.

"_No_!" yelled Jack.

"_Yes_!" the Doctor yelled back.

***

"Donna Noble saved the Universe," the Doctor said quietly and defiantly. "All the Universes. And all the Universes owe her something."

***

"You know what?" Jack said quietly. "I've just realised you're trouble. You're one big fucking trouble and you're drawing us all in your messed up world of continuous troubles.

***

"Blimey," Donna said uncertainly. "The dream I've had..."

* * *


End file.
